


Black Gold, Black Steel

by k_n



Series: Black Gold, Black Steel [1]
Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHoLic
Genre: Conspiracy, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Mystery, Open Relationships, Psychological Trauma, Substance Abuse, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2020-10-03 18:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20457605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k_n/pseuds/k_n
Summary: Intelligence agent Kurogane Suwa wants to expose Celes Oil's seedy underbelly by striking up a relationship with the company's eccentric PR consultant, Fai Fluorite, only to find himself in a world of trouble.(Re-upload!)





	1. The Lover

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again! I originally wrote this story a few years ago, but took it down when I had a big scare with how my content might be used. It was probably the most fun I ever had writing, and I wanted to bring it back to everyone changed up and improved. Be prepared for a somewhat different version of the story you might have read in the past!

Fai has an icepack over his eye. He lounges on a bed with satin, blue sheets, struggling to light a cigarette, and he looks very, very calm. Beneath the icepack is a swollen, black eye, given to him by a rich and frightening man, but no one seems to realize that Fai is the most frightening man in the room. He’s the most frightening man in _ every _room.

“Checkmate,” Fai hums.

Kurogane narrows his eyes.

“I caught you, handsome,” Fai chuckles, flapping his cigarette like an extra finger. “What would Mr. Ashura say?”

“Shut up.”

“Now, now,” Fai says, grinning, “I don’t think he would say that.”

Kurogane is silent.

“What should I do with you?” Fai asks. “A traitor—a very handsome one, indeed, but a traitor. I know what _ he _would say. He would say, ‘Why—take him around the back and shoot him’!”

Kurogane’s gun feels heavy in its holster. The act is over. Fai knows the truth, but Kurogane is not so keen to surrender himself. He was sent here on a job, and he has sufficient evidence. It just so happens that he found the best evidence the very same night that Fai discovered the lie. He makes a move to grab his gun, but he hears _ click_.

Fai points a gun at him, the icepack discarded. The safety is off. Fai is smiling, unperturbed, while one eye is swollen entirely shut.

“Don’t be reckless, darling,” Fai hums.

Kurogane’s hand hovers above his gun. If he acts fast, he can shoot and run. He doesn’t want to shoot, though.

“I want to make a _ deal_,” Fai says, pronouncing the last word like it is his favorite dessert. “You have an agenda, no? But I do, too. I think you are the very man I’ve been looking for all along.”

“What do you want?” Kurogane asks, and Fai grins.

* * *

The King of Oil has a male lover.

The Agency figures this out because Kurogane is a diligent worker, managing to trail a man who keeps showing up wherever the King of Oil does. The man is white, slender, handsome, blond, and quite tall—dressed well, always managing to match exactly what the King wears (if the King has a blue suit, this man has a matching blue ascot). On the surface, the man works for the King as a PR consultant, but Kurogane suspects it is a lie.

So he trails the blond, sitting in parking lots, waiting. The man never drives his own car; someone always picks him up in a nondescript black vehicle. Kurogane notes the license plate, but it changes each time, though the same model of car reappears to pick up the man.

His name is Fai D. Flowright, which Kurogane thinks is an awful name, but he has heard enough people mangle his own (“So, Cowry-gain?”) to not judge beyond that. He tries to follow a paper trail, but Fai leaves _ nothing _ . This does not make sense, as Kurogane has tailed Fai in lavish restaurants, in high-end boutiques, and the man comes away with shopping bags or comes away stumbling-drunk and giggly, so there _ must _be a paper trail. As well as this, Kurogane cannot find any evidence that the man even works. If he really is a PR consultant, he is the worst one in the world.

Kurogane comes up with an idea that is not very novel at all, but the Agency did not consider it. Fai is the King’s lover.

This should not be that surprising, really, because international intelligence agencies know that the King has a secretive, double life. He pays his taxes, passes rig inspections, pours money into dying economies, and has, on the surface, a normal life. He is in his fifties, black- haired, smartly-dressed, and never misspeaks. Celes Oil is a lucrative business, even as the days of oil are numbered, and the King himself (always called Mr. Ashura—even the agencies refer to him this way) profits. Men with power, of course, have two lives, if not three or four or seven or twenty. Still, on the surface, Mr. Ashura’s life is clean, rich, and successful.

The under-belly is a bit different. Mr. Ashura has a wife (estranged) and a daughter (not estranged); beneath his oil business is a most likely a shadow business of drug-peddling, human trafficking, illegal weaponry, and bogus real estate deals. The intelligence agencies have suspected all of this, naturally, but have not been able to pinpoint a thing. Mr. Ashura leaves no evidence. To the public, he is the clean and responsible King of Oil. The public doesn’t see the rampaged cities around his oil refineries, filled with weapons, filled with heroin, with cocaine, missing children and women and—

That is why Kurogane ends up in this nonsense. The Agency sends him in plain clothes, attaching a wire, and Kurogane approaches the drunken lover in an upscale restaurant. Fai is flirting with another man in the bar, but he instantly takes notice of Kurogane. He looks the agent up and down and orders the man a drink. When the barkeep tells Kurogane who the benefactor is, Fai waves from across the bar, winking.

The first night doesn’t exactly go too well because all Fai wants to do is—well, not exactly what the Agency should overhear on the wire. Kurogane has to be the world’s most patient man, and the Agency should up his pay for the self-restraint he has, because Fai whispers very dirty things in his ear that make him blush. Kurogane refrains, but he recognizes that this lover is not very faithful to the King.

What sort of relationship is it, then?

Fai asks for Kurogane’s number, so he gives him one—it is an Agency phone, tracked, and when he comes home, he finds a single text.

_ I have a business proposition for you. _

He doesn’t recognize the number. He types, _ Who is this? _

The number replies, _ Darling! You’ve forgotten me already? I am the very nice man who bought you a drink. _

Kurogane glares at the Agency phone. _ Alright_, he types. _ What is it? _

_ I need a bodyguard! _

Kurogane sees an in, and it’s a very good one. If he is this man’s bodyguard, he will be closer to the King than anyone in the Agency has ever been. All it took was a bit of vigilance and a suit and a “chance” meeting in a bar. Kurogane thanks his good fortune.

_ I’m interested. _

_ I thought you would be. ;) _

Kurogane receives another text from his superior—Tomoyo, his direct supervisor, and he’s a bit embarrassed to read it, realizing she has seen every text from the blond and has heard every dirty word the man spoke. He switches the conversation.

_ Whatever you do_, it reads, _ be careful. _

Kurogane brings his gun.

* * *

Kurogane learns, very quickly, that the relationship between Mr. Ashura and Fai is very strange. Fai is, essentially, a live-in lover who is free to do anything he pleases—or, _ mostly _anything he pleases. Mr. Ashura decides what Fai will wear and makes very (disturbingly) precise demands on the younger man’s appearance. Despite his physical absence, Mr. Ashura is present in other ways: credit cards and cash and Fai’s words.

Fai is the same age as Mr. Ashura’s daughter—early thirties—who looks frighteningly similar to the lover. Both are blond-haired and pretty. Fai calls her “Chii” and Kurogane realizes that she acts exactly how Fai does, judging by what Fai says. She spends her father’s money on anything she likes, drinks quite a bit, and lets her ass hang out. Fai doesn’t say the last part, but Kurogane fills in that blank himself. She has a bodyguard of her own—and the man always looks terribly exasperated, according to Fai, which is how Kurogane feels after a week of his new “job”.

Kurogane accompanies Fai everywhere, standing awkwardly by while Fai buys clothing that Mr. Ashura has instructed him to. He picks up a dove-grey suit from a tailor Kurogane could never dream of affording, and Fai looks at Kurogane for a little while before he exclaims, “My handsome bodyguard should have a suit, no?”

Kurogane thinks he is dressed well enough. “Can’t.”

“And why not?”

“I can’t afford it,” Kurogane says lamely, and Fai chuckles, shaking his head. “Really, I can’t.”

“Do you think I can afford this?” Fai asks, and he hands Kurogane the wrapped suit. Kurogane hangs it over his shoulder. “Of course not. But I know someone who can.

Fai winks and drags Kurogane back into the place, and Kurogane has measurements taken for a suit he doesn’t need, but Fai is very pleased with the arrangement, and they leave. Mr. Ashura is paying for this suit. _ The King of Oil _is paying for a suit, and Kurogane is the one who will receive it. It’s all a bit ridiculous.

“What is he to you?” Kurogane asks.

“Hmm? Oh! Of course,” Fai laughs. “I suppose you must be very curious.”

“You bought me a drink and...” Kurogane trails off, making a dubious gesture with his free hand (the other is weighed down in shopping bags and a grey suit wrapped with a plastic veil). “You get it.”

“We’re in love,” Fai replies, though he says it so easily that it surprises Kurogane. “He has other lovers, and I have mine, as well. It is a good arrangement. I get lots of treats, as well, which is very nice.”

Kurogane nods, after a moment, wondering what the Agency will do with that bit of information.

“Are you free this afternoon?” Fai asks, which is a stupid question. His afternoon will be spent “guarding” Fai, after all. He gives the lover a curious look. “Perhaps we could have lunch.”

“If you want.”

“I want many, many, many things,” Fai replies. “But yes, I should like lunch with you. You have been very well behaved. My last bodyguard gave me a great deal of trouble.”

“What’d he do?”

And Fai only looks away.

* * *

Tomoyo meets Kurogane in her office, holding a huge stack of papers. When Kurogane has a glance at them, he realizes what it is: a transcript. He sees Fai’s words and his own typed out; various lines are highlighted and the pages are cluttered with colorful post-it notes. He sits down, and Tomoyo gives him a quick, teasing smile.

“No suit?” she asks.

“Don’t bother,” he says gruffly. “Don’t know why he wants to dress me up.”

“It seems Mr. Ashura likes to dress _ him _up,” Tomoyo remarks, raising her brows. She pulls out another stack of paper: the list of things Fai bought in a single week. Kurogane marked them all down and emailed the list to her the night prior, and it was overwhelming to see, in the end, because it totaled more than what he pays in rent for half a year. Tomoyo waves this list in the air. “If we ran a newspaper, we could have a field day.”

“Yep,” he agrees. “Odd stuff.”

“Unfortunately, Kurogane,” Tomoyo sighs, “this isn’t anything _ criminal _. All of it is really ridiculous—hilarious, even—but it isn’t illegal.”

He nods.

“I was thinking, perhaps, that you need to ask for longer ‘shifts’,” Tomoyo tells him. “Or _ later _ones. Get him very drunk and talk to him. He likes to talk. I feel very sorry for little Sakura, as she had to type all of this for us, and I think her fingers nearly fell off.”

_ Little Sakura _is twenty-eight and taller than Tomoyo, but most people are. Tomoyo’s pride and ego are both much taller than anyone’s, however, and that is why she has her position: she is good at what she does, and she knows it.

“_I’m _ the one who has to _ listen _to it,” Kurogane reminds her.

“He has an enormous crush on you,” she says, nodding. “It’s funny, really. I think this ‘bodyguard’ business is just an excuse to see you, like an elaborate date.”

“Really stealing my heart, then,” Kurogane mutters dryly. She bursts into laughter, fanning herself with the list of items.

“I really think he’s trying hard to win you over, honestly!” she confesses. “Convoluted as that is.”

“Convoluted as hell.”

“In any case,” Tomoyo says, waiting until her own laughter dies down, “heroin is getting _ huge _in Venezuela, and Celes Oil has only been there for six months. Aside from your very long dates with this guy, we have to find something. If you can get close to Mr. Flowright, you’re going to learn something about that. Lovers know a lot of secrets, and I suspect your charge knows a lot more than he says.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Kurogane honestly doesn’t think Fai is just a “pretty thing” that Mr. Ashura pampers. Fai might act foolish, but he is very bright and observant—he even noticed that Kurogane had changed his aftershave, even if Kurogane had not changed the actual brand of it. That is not the sort of man who would not gather a lot of secrets.

But he doesn’t know why Fai wants a bodyguard at all.

* * *

Okay, Kurogane figures out why Fai wants a bodyguard, after all. It’s unnerving when Kurogane figures it out, as Fai calls him in the early morning (it is 4 AM and Fai sounds strange), asking to be taken somewhere. Kurogane wonders why Fai would not use those lovely, black cars, but he meets Fai in a public place—Fai sits beneath a bus platform, wearing a heavy, tweed coat and puffing on a cigarette, and he winces when he gets to his feet. Kurogane puts his car in park and unlocks the passenger’s side; Fai gets in, but he sits very gingerly.

“The hell happened?” Kurogane asks. He turns on the overhead light, assessing the man. His face looks perfectly fine, but he isn’t sitting right. “Hey. Take off your coat.”

Fai’s smile is quick and sharp. “Mr. Bodyguard,” he says, “you agreed to take me somewhere.”

Fai fumbles with his coat. Kurogane pulls at the coat and realizes Fai is wearing pajamas under it, and the collar is partially unbuttoned, and he sees a great, angry burn on the man’s smooth chest. Fai swats Kurogane’s hand away and rolls down his window.

“I want to go somewhere,” Fai repeats. “You agreed to take me along.”

“You should have called me earlier,” Kurogane snaps. “I would’ve stopped it.”

“You’re very silly if you think you could have stopped anything,” Fai replies. He ashes his cigarette out a window, and Kurogane says to put it out. The man pouts. “Mr. Ashura lets me smoke.”

“Smoke all you want, but not in my car.”

“I’m paying you. I’m your employer. I order you to let me smoke in your car,” Fai says tightly. “I need you to take me to someone.”

“A doctor?”

Fai waves his hands, neither confirming nor denying that. Kurogane wonders if he should drive to a hospital.

“I know a woman,” Fai says simply. He gives an address, and Kurogane drives. Fai turns up the music. Kurogane turns it down. Fai turns it up. Kurogane can’t win, it seems, but he pulls into a driveway and Fai clicks his seatbelt off. He pauses. “Stay in the car, dear. I won’t be long.”

“Like hell I’m staying in here.”

“Yes, 'like hell'—but you _ will _stay.”

Fai smiles wryly and pats Kurogane on the head, awkwardly getting to his feet, and he walks down the driveway alone. Kurogane studies the house—it is small, black, and has a quaint fence around it. Bushes of flowers stand along on a pebble pathway, and Fai limps along it, coming to the door. A man with short black hair and glasses answers, glancing towards the car, and Fai waves as if to say, “No big deal!” and he goes inside. Kurogane’s phone vibrates.

_ Why are you at Yuuko’s house? _ reads Tomoyo’s text. Kurogane deletes the text quickly, lest Fai should see it later, and waits. Ten minutes pass, and Fai emerges again, this time appearing in the doorway beside a pale woman with sprawling black hair. He kisses the woman’s cheek and returns to the car, taking a seat.

“Who’s your friend?” Kurogane asks.

“Miss Yuuko,” Fai says simply.

“What were you doing?”

Fai shrugs, as if he somehow would not know. Kurogane sighs, but he reaches over, gently putting a hand on the lover’s shoulder. Fai offers a tight, cautious smile.

“Look,” Kurogane mutters, “something’s wrong, here. It isn’t my business. But if I’m your bodyguard, the idea is that you _ don’t _get hurt.”

“My bodyguard is also so smart,” Fai returns cheerfully, though he is entirely sarcastic. “Drive me home.”

“What’d you get from that lady?”

“Kurogane,” Fai says lightly, “drive me _ home_.”

And that’s all he says on the matter, so Kurogane drives him home.

* * *

“Find out what he took from her,” Tomoyo commands. “If we can prove she really is dealing, that’s just another thing going right for you. But you’re not getting my job, so don’t even think of that.”

“I don’t even want your job.”

Kurogane has an inkling of what Fai bought from Miss Yuuko—prescription painkillers for which he has no prescription. Fai takes them every six hours and becomes very drowsy and handsy with him, and Kurogane tries to learn more about Mr. Ashura in that time, but Fai only wants to talk about what Kurogane does to “get a good butt” because Fai would like a “good butt”. It’s very tiring.

“It might be oxy,” Kurogane says. “I can’t take one from him to find out. He’s smarter than he looks.”

She nods. “I saw the side effects you listed.” She pauses. “You think someone beat him up.”

“Yeah. I would love to get Ashura on assault.”

“You’re not saying it, but I hear a ‘but’ there.”

“Because Fai won’t budge. Doesn’t tell me anything,” Kurogane sighs. “He says it was ‘nobody’—he’s protecting the guy.”

“It isn’t uncommon, Kurogane. People protect their abusers all the time.” She shrugs.

“It’s fucking stupid.” He scowls. “They should just leave.”

“You say that because you haven’t been in their shoes,” she replies mildly. “As it is, your charge does not seem to have anything to fall back on if he leaves. Mr. Ashura gives him money, food, a house—a very, very lavish lifestyle that neither of us can appreciate. If he really loves Mr. Ashura, too, that makes it all the more difficult to leave.”

“I hate this,” Kurogane confesses.

“I know.” She looks sympathetic. “If we can really get this right, you’ll get some charges on the guy. He’s not going to go to jail. He’s too powerful. But it could be a PR nightmare. Fai could come away with some money from settlements and leave. It might even look bad enough that Celes Oil tries making up for it by making some real changes, like investing in renewable technology, too.”

“Like hell it will,” Kurogane sighs. “That guy’s got an empire. He has rigs in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan and even Venezuela, now. He’s the biggest player. If he’s out of the picture, there’s somebody else who wants in.”

“A little hope is nice.”

“Sure, but you gotta be reasonable.”

Tomoyo waits a bit, but she finally says, “Take a night shift, Kurogane, or at least try to. We have to keep this going.”

He agrees.

* * *

Fai is only _ too _ delighted to have Kurogane in his “house” at night. The truth is that Fai lives in a little suite that Mr. Ashura added to the house, but that _ little suite _is enormous. The ceilings are very, very high and there are too many chandeliers. Kurogane recognizes a few famous paintings—“Fakes,” Fai explains, but he thoughtfully adds, “Still very beautiful, of course”—and sees very old books in glass cases, lit with tiny spotlights. Fai has copies of famous things. He has a copy of the Dead Sea scrolls and the Voynich Manuscript, which Fai talks a great deal about.

“No one can solve it!” Fai says, talking quickly as if the words might be forgotten if he can’t shoot them out. “No one can read it, but I like it quite a bit. If you’re good, I might take it out and show you. A replica, naturally, but it is just as fascinating as the original.”

After Kurogane tires of seeing copies of strange art, Fai brings out a small bucket of something and a bottle of something else. He sets up a plastic bowl, a brush, and hair foils. Kurogane blinks at the arrangement, and Fai gestures towards his hair.

“What are you asking me to do?” Kurogane asks.

“I think it’s very obvious,” Fai replies. “Help me with my roots.”

“I’m not a hairdresser. I’m your bodyguard.”

“Well, if I trust you with my life, I think I can trust you with my hair,” Fai replies happily, which is a very stupid way to think of things. Kurogane has no idea how any of it works, and Fai happily rattles off instructions, showing Kurogane how to mix bleach and developer—“It should be the consistency of pancake batter”—and talks about chemicals in the concoction that react to the proteins in hair.

Kurogane listens and retains little of it, too focused on Fai’s delivery: exact, excited, boyish, like a science teacher. He imagines Fai at the front of a classroom, pointing emphatically to notes on a board.

“I thought you were naturally blond,” Kurogane mutters, sliding on thin gloves. Fai comes back into the room with an unusually casual t-shirt with bleach stains and purple splotches, smiling when Kurogane’s sentence ends. He takes a seat, facing away.

“You’ve seen my eyebrows. Do you really think my hair would naturally be this light?” Fai wonders.

Kurogane thinks about it. “Guess so.”

“That’s adorable,” Fai laughs, and Kurogane’s face goes red, though Fai is turned away and can’t see it. “No. Mr. Ashura likes me blond. It wreaks havoc on my hair, but it’s a small price to pay.”

“What color is it naturally?” Kurogane hesitantly dabs the brush into the bowl, feeling very ridiculous about the situation. This is not in his official Agency job requirements, nor in his “bodyguard” requirements. Fai keeps his neck very straight and his head very still. If Kurogane looks hard, he can see a tiny amount of dark roots, but it is hard to notice at all—a half inch, if that.

“Brown,” Fai says. “Mousy brown.”

“You like being blond?”

Fai laughs. “Not particularly, though it gives him an excuse to make ‘blond jokes’.”

“Why is he so fussy with your appearance?” Kurogane touches the brush to the dark roots, afraid that he should do something wrong. Fai doesn’t scream with pain when the mixture accidentally hits his scalp, so Kurogane reasons he is not dealing with explosives.

“Oh, darling,” Fai muses, “there is _ nothing _he isn’t fussy about. The hair? It does not trouble me. There are worse things.”

Kurogane pauses. “Such as?”

“Nothing. He really is a good man—simply ‘different’, but so am I,” Fai replies quickly. “We are a good pair.”

Kurogane feels sad about that, thinking of his suspicions, but he doesn’t say so.

“My bodyguard is a natural hairdresser,” Fai remarks.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Nonsense!” Fai replies. “You are doing a wonderful job.”

* * *

“Really, Kurogane, I’m starting to think he’s fucking with us,” Tomoyo says, and he is so surprised by the strong wording that he laughs. She throws up her hands. “The _ hair_? Honestly!”

“Maybe he is. Don’t know.” Kurogane is starting to think it, too. After the hair incident, Fai kept Kurogane up to look at the Voynich Manuscript replica; he had thumbed, through, poking at illustrations, asking Kurogane what he thought it meant. Kurogane thought it meant nothing at all, that it was a prank by someone from centuries ago, but Fai had not liked that answer very much (and talked for twenty minutes about his own theories). “He’s smart.”

“Yes,” she sighs, rubbing her eyes. “He is _ very _smart. He isn’t exactly ‘boy toy’ material, if you understand my meaning.”

Fai visually _ is _‘boy toy’ material, but she’s right—in actuality, he isn’t. Kurogane nods at her.

“Beyond that,” Tomoyo continues, “we have almost _ no records _ of the guy. On paper, he has no degrees from anywhere. We have a birth certificate, and that’s where the trail ends. Something is _ wrong _here. With how he talks, he’s definitely an educated man.”

“Agreed.”

“Look—people like him just _ don’t _end up being live in boyfriends for the King of Oil. It doesn’t make any sense. Combine that with the ‘PR’ bullshit and you can’t tell me it doesn’t stink like something.”

“What are you saying, then?” he asks.

“I’m saying if there’s something wrong with Mr. Ashura, there is _ definitely _ something wrong with your charge,” Tomoyo explains, and she grabs the stack of papers—his conversations with Fai, all typed up for convenience—and flips through them until she stops at one page. “He went to Yuuko. He’s a ‘PR consultant’. He _ lives _in his own suite with his employer. Something is not right. He likes you. Let him keep liking you. Something has to slip.”

Kurogane nods. “I’m following.”

“Good,” Tomoyo replies, and she lets the stack flop heavily back on her desk. “Keep it going.”

He does.

* * *

Kurogane gets a call at six in the morning from Fai, and the man wants to be taken somewhere again. Kurogane, on the phone, agrees, and drags himself out of bed. His cat, Moko, decides that six in the morning is a great time to start clawing apart his armchair (and it’s _ right next _to the scratching post he bought her), and Kurogane leaves with his arms torn up. Moko is the victor.

He navigates tiredly through the traffic until he reaches a bus platform—the same one he took Fai from when this happened last—and stops the car. Fai comes to the car, walking like his bones aren’t sitting right. He takes a seat and immediately deflates, sighing.

It’s really too early for this.

“Alright,” Kurogane mutters. “What really happened?”

“Just drive,” Fai replies.

“Fai,” Kurogane says, “was it him?”

“I told you to drive, did I not?” Fai snaps, so Kurogane obeys. He drives. Fai sits hunched over in the seat, pressing his head against the window. In the faint morning light, Kurogane can see that the man looks unwell. Fai has his eyes shut, but he mumbles an address.

_ Withdrawal, _Kurogane thinks, but he is not sure.

Unsurprisingly, they end up outside a small, black house with a short fence. Kurogane doesn’t know what to do—does he just stay in the car? Kurogane waits, but Fai doesn’t even move to unbuckle himself.

“Hey.”

Fai cracks an eye open.

“You fell asleep?” Kurogane realizes, and Fai squints at him. “Wanna tell me what happened, or are you going to be an asshole about it again?”

“You have a cat, don’t you?” Fai asks sleepily. “You have white fur all over you.”

“Stop evading me,” Kurogane snaps. “What _ happened_?”

“Nothing happened,” Fai mutters. “I wanted to go on a drive.”

“Really, now? Because you _ did _call me at 6 AM and you passed out in my car. Looks of it, there’s something pretty wrong, here.”

Fai manages to smile—just barely. “If I had known you were so perceptive, I might not have sent you that drink.”

Kurogane swallows.

“It’s not my business, but if he’s hurting you, you can tell me.”

“My bodyguard—the saint,” Fai says sweetly, but his voice is edged with a warning (_stay away_). Fai looks out the window, then, and regards the house outside it fondly. “Drive me home.”

“But you haven’t gone in.”

“I told you I just wanted you to drive,” Fai replies. “Drive back, now.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Who pays you?”

“_Fine_.”

Kurogane backs out of the driveway. It took forty-five minutes to get there, and it will take slightly longer to get back from the growing morning traffic. Fai snuggles back into his odd position, leaning against the window, and shuts his eyes. Kurogane glares at his windshield and does exactly what he’s told: he takes the man home. He parks after passing the elaborately long driveway, finding Fai’s suite, and sits there for a moment, watching the man. Fai opens a tired eye.

“You’re home,” Kurogane announces, but Fai shakes his head. “Want me to walk you in?”

“You would make a wonderful date,” Fai decides, and he kisses Kurogane on the cheek, hobbling into his suite alone. Kurogane is glad that the wire doesn’t see how much he blushes.

* * *

After work, the team heads out for a happy hour—something they haven’t done in some time. Sakura tries telling everyone a story, but every time she tries to make a gesture with both hands, she doesn’t let go of Mr. Li’s, meaning that Mr. Li’s arm goes wobbling along the entire time. Tomoyo keeps laughing behind her hand at this and Xing Huo shakes her head at her and Kurogane tries to keep a watch on everyone while minding the door and minding his phone, waiting for texts from Fai. He has a night off, for once, and finds himself missing a certain blond’s company.

A lull falls over the group. Sakura perks up and says, “Xing Huo, aren’t you going on vacation soon?”

Xing Huo nods. “Next month.”

“Anything fun planned?”

“It is a family reunion,” Xing Huo says simply.

“That could be fun,” Sakura decides.

At Xing Huo’s silence, Tomoyo adds, “Or terrible.”

Xing Huo and Kurogane exchange a short glance at this, but Kurogane feels a need to look away from her. Xing Huo has a particularly odd sort of gaze, too direct, never warm. Unlike most people, Xing Huo lacks expression. No one has ever seen her laugh, or smile. She is the newest addition to their team, and difficult to get to know, which, on some level, Kurogane envies. He tries to keep a good distance from people, but finds he’s too prone to pouring out, one way or another.

Xing Huo, on the other hand, offers up very little. She usually moves silently through her days, only notable for her quiet eccentricities: her expressionless face, her unfailingly all-black attire, her bat earrings, the glass figurines on her desk. Truthfully, she spooks most of the team.

Carla often jokes that the places in the office Xing Huo is in are haunted (“I can’t use the bathroom yet. There’s a ghost finishing up in there.”). Sakura tries to be friendly, as she does with everyone, but involuntarily jumps whenever Xing Huo comes by to ask a question. Even Mr. Li, who is never smooth with anyone in the office, makes an effort to keep out of her way. Everyone but Tomoyo tries to avoid her, from what Kurogane has seen, but she may not be the best judge of character, since she willingly keeps him around.

Kurogane takes out his phone, again, checking for a text that isn’t there. Tomoyo smiles at him and rolls her eyes.

“You’re hopeless,” she tells him. “It’s one night. You’ll see him tomorrow. Besides, we haven’t done this in a while.”

Kurogane sighs. “Fine.”

But he still checks his phone throughout the night, worried that the man he’s in charge of taking around might finally cave in and admit something is wrong, that he needs help, that he needs to get away, that he isn’t safe. And while Kurogane won’t admit this is anyone else, he can’t risk missing that, and that isn’t only because it’s his job. It’s something else entirely.

* * *

Fai inadvertently outs Kurogane to the Agency, which is extremely terrible for many reasons. The first is that _ no one knows _ Kurogane is “different” but Kurogane himself (and Fai, apparently). The second is that he knows how his male colleagues are, and they are not going to know how to talk to him without being incredibly awkward. There will be a lot of _ you know I have a gay cousin and there’s nothing wrong with it _’s and Kurogane will have to pretend that they are saying a nice thing, there, where in reality, he would prefer they say nothing at all. His personal life is none of their business, and he isn’t gay. He isn’t straight, either.

He drives, and Fai is in the passenger’s seat, turning up the volume while Kurogane bats it back down to an acceptable level. Fai turns it up again. Kurogane turns it back down. Fai turns it up. Kurogane snaps, “Quit it.”

“I like this song,” Fai complains. “My bodyguard is so touchy.”

“I’m not touchy. I just like when my ears aren’t bleeding,” Kurogane quips. Fai raises an eyebrow at that. “You know, like a normal person.”

“You are hardly normal,” Fai snorts.

“Why not?”

“You decided to be my bodyguard after having known me for three hours,” Fai begins, listing the points off on his white fingers. “You decided this after having a ‘conversation’ with me for thirty-six minutes. That ‘conversation’ consisted of me propositioning you.”

Kurogane _ feels _himself blushing, and he hates it. Fai starts giggling hysterically, poking his cheek.

“You are so precious!” Fai celebrates.

“Shut your goddamn mouth.”

“You _ liked _when I propositioned you!” Fai exclaims.

“I did not.”

“You wanted to be my bodyguard based on just _ that! _”

“Shut up.”

Fai fumbles for his cigarette case, grinning, and Kurogane realizes that this man is not dumb at all. Beneath the cute accusation is something a bit too close for Kurogane to name. Fai flicks his lighter. “When did you know?”

Kurogane glances over to glare, refusing to answer.

“Don’t be so shy,” Fai teases. “You see how _ I _live. I have no place to judge. For me, I always knew—I never realized it was ‘different’ until the world told me as much.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says stiffly.

“You’re gay.”

“Wrong.”

Fai revises. “You’re a little bit gay.”

Kurogane sighs. He gives up. Evidently, Fai has no sense of reasonable, personal boundaries, and he won’t be able to deny the words without making the conversation very strange. He isn’t supposed to be talking to the Agency, but only to Fai, so he surrenders this much: “I’m bisexual.”

“Ah, I was close,” Fai says, and he pats Kurogane on the knee. His cigarette burns orange-red. “I could tell, when I saw you. I don’t buy drinks for _ every _handsome stranger.”

“You probably do.”

Fai chuckles, shaking his head. He rolls a window down, and a cool wind blows inward. The city looks tall, bright, and young. Kurogane feels old, though he is not old at all. Fai keeps his hand on Kurogane’s knee, and Kurogane tries to shake it off, but it stays, and it is warm and strange.

Fai, too, is warm and strange.

* * *

He visits the Agency to review the case with Tomoyo. On his way there, Mr. Li (it’s stupid to call him that—he’s younger than Kurogane, twenty-eight, and his name is Syaoran, but the stupid kid insists on formalities) brings him a black coffee and hurriedly promises, “I have a gay cousin. There is nothing wrong with it.”

“Yeah—what you’re doing? Don’t,” Kurogane replies, but he takes the coffee. Obviously, word travels fast. If Sakura is the one typing the conversations, Mr. Li will have heard of it (they are dating, which is technically not allowed, but Tomoyo has deemed it permissible). Mr. Li holds his arms at his sides as if he is trying them on for the first time. “I know what you’re getting at, but _ please _shut up.”

“I just wanted you to know that I have no problem.”

“Nobody had a problem with me before,” Kurogane sighs. “They won’t, now. Thanks.”

Mr. Li stands there, blocking his way, with a look on his face that reads ‘_I think we should be trying that small talk thing_’. Kurogane waits, but the kid doesn’t get the message, so Kurogane pushes him aside and walks off. Mr. Li apologizes after him, but it doesn’t matter. He finds Tomoyo’s office and opens the door, dismayed to find a cake with rainbow icing on her desk. He blinks at it. He takes a step back, shuts the door, and retreats to his own office.

There, Tomoyo finds him, bringing that cake with her.

“This is embarrassing_, _” Kurogane snaps.

“Sure, but we should celebrate,” Tomoyo says with a mischievous grin. She is forty-some and never looks her age. Kurogane thinks she could be very good in anti-aging commercials. “Honestly, I just wanted cake. It was a good excuse.”

“Sure is,” Kurogane replies glumly. He glares at it. “I don’t like sweets.”

“Kurogane, if left to your own devices, you would probably eat cardboard,” Tomoyo chuckles. She cuts a slice with a plastic knife and offers it to him, but he shakes his head. Shrugging, she takes it for herself. “Suit yourself!”

He sees that it’s confetti cake, and groans. “Tomoyo...”

“Sakura thought we should do something special,” Tomoyo explains. “She made it, actually. As for me? I didn’t care. I know you well enough, too, to know you’d hate the fuss.”

“So you let her do it, anyway.”

“There _ is _ a cake in front of you that says _ ‘We Love You_’, in case you didn’t notice,” Tomoyo chuckles. “We do love you.”

“I think you hate me, actually.”

“You’re so silly,” Tomoyo decides. “I’m a lesbian, myself, but she doesn’t know that. Do you think I can get a cake for that, too?”

“Jesus Christ.”

Kurogane sips the coffee Mr. Li gave him, frowning at his superior.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, shrugging, then. He is glad she drops it. “We do our jobs. That’s all there is to worry about.”

He nods. “Exactly.”

“But I _ do _have a very attractive cousin for you...”

“_Tomoyo. _”

She cackles.

* * *

Kurogane does a strange thing he has never done before: he breaks the rules. He turns off his own wire and slides change into a payphone, dialing Fai’s number. The man picks up, and Kurogane shivers at the voice. When Fai thinks he has a call from a stranger, he sounds completely different—rigid, formal, serious.

“Good afternoon—you have reached Mr. Flowright. May I ask who is calling?” the lover begins, and Kurogane is so startled that he forgets to speak. “Hello—are you still there?”

“Fai.”

“_Oh! _My favorite bodyguard,” Fai hums, and his voice changes entirely, full of smooth, happy notes. “I was just thinking of you, as well. I don’t have this number. Is something wrong?”

“Phone died,” Kurogane lies. “This is a payphone.”

“How romantic,” Fai sighs.

“Not really.” Kurogane looks at the old, flattened gum on the sidewalks. A kid across the street throws a tantrum while his mother drags him away from a food truck that sells crepes. A crowd of young adults with lip rings and dyed hair smoke cigarettes and glare at him. It is not romantic at all. “You busy?”

“I am perfectly bored,” Fai replies cheerfully. “I do have a waxing appointment in a few hours, so if you have a long confession, please keep it short.”

“Waxing appointment?”

“Full-body. I really hate it,” Fai confesses, lowering his voice as if someone else might hear him. Kurogane immediately regrets asking anything when Fai adds, “I’m not even a _ hairy _man, but it’s absolutely terrible. I come away with rashes for a day. But Mr. Ashura says it makes my skin soft, and he pays for it. If the man pays!”

“...So,” Kurogane manages. Mr. Ashura, evidently, pays for Fai to have full-body waxes, which is just another bizarre thing about that relationship Kurogane wishes he never knew.

Fai laughs. “I forget myself! You called for a reason. What is it?”

“I wanted to give you something.”

“Is it roses?” Fai asks quickly. “If so, please take them back—he already gives me too many, and I’ve come to hate them. I like the lily-of-the-valley, best—_Convallaria majalis_.”

“I’m not giving you _ flowers_.” Kurogane glowers at the payphone, as if it might be responsible. “Mind if I drop by?”

“I only mind it when you leave,” Fai replies, which is an odd thing for the man to say, but his tone is very pleasant and Kurogane clears his throat, unsure of how to answer. “I’ll buzz you in at the gate, darling—do drive over, now, as you can’t hold a payphone to your ear in a car!”

“Sure.”

Fai jabbers an elaborately long goodbye, so Kurogane hangs up midway and gets in his car, looking at the gun he bought—it’s a small, standard handgun, but he thinks it will do just fine. He drives out of the city, following winding roads until he finds the King of Oil’s estate. It’s an odd place, like a palace built in the middle of nowhere; he has no neighbors for dozens of miles, and there are so many trees that the area seems designed for seclusion. When his car approaches the gate, it buzzes, and the gates give way. He tucks the small handgun in his coat and drives the winding path, which leads to the eastern branch—Fai’s suite—and goes to the door. It opens before he even knocks, and he comes inside.

“Here,” he says, and Fai looks at the gun for less than a second before he looks at Kurogane as if the man has grown heads. “For your protection.”

“I don’t need that. I have a lovely bodyguard.” Fai glances behind him, and mouths, _ Go outside. _Kurogane obeys; they go into his car, and Fai locks his door. “You can’t give me that.”

“I can’t be here _ constantly_. You need _ something_,” Kurogane returns, and Fai gingerly takes the gun in his hands. “I’ll show you how to turn the safety off—”

“I can use a gun,” Fai replies, cutting Kurogane off. Kurogane is more than surprised to learn this, but Fai only regards that with a big, beaming smile. “Yes, I know—I’m very surprising!”

“Why would you know that?”

“I know lots and lots of things, darling,” Fai chuckles, but it fades off, and there is something there, between them, and Kurogane is the one to break the silence. He touches Fai’s shoulder, and Fai’s smile is too toothy.

“Why didn’t you take this inside?”

“I am not supposed to have a gun.”

“Hide it, then.”

“I have no place to hide it.”

“Then shove it up your ass or something,” Kurogane hisses, and Fai regards that very thoughtfully with a bemused smile.

“Mr. Ashura would _ definitely _find it, then,” Fai says.

“Don’t tell me that!”

“Kurogane,” Fai murmurs, “I cannot accept this. It does not mean I can’t appreciate the gesture. You’re very, very sweet to me, and not many people really are.”

Fai slides the gun back, careful to keep it low, away from the windshield, and Kurogane does not want to have his gift returned, so he grabs it, shoving it back in the lover’s hands. Fai’s smile quickly shifts, straining. “You need to have this.”

“I am not sure why you think I’m being beaten, darling,” Fai murmurs.

“You had that _ burn _on your chest.”

Fai instinctively touches his chest, but he bursts out laughing. “I had a _ wax _that day. My skin breaks out horrendously. That’s adorable. No, no one is beating me. The wax might be, but it’s a necessary evil.”

“But you don’t sit right—”

“I get rashes on my bottom. Really, Kurogane—this is only embarrassing us both,” Fai laughs. “Are you trying to tell me to shoot my waxer? She’s a very nice woman, despite how she pains me.”

“I’m not trying to tell you to do anything.”

Fai looks at him for a few moments, as if practicing a difficult sentence in his head, but visibly changes his mind. He smiles and kisses Kurogane on the cheek, setting the gifted gun between the man’s knees. Kurogane tries to give it back, but Fai has already popped the door open, and he dashes towards his suite. “_Hey! _”

Fai turns, winking, and waves goodbye. Kurogane feels something flutter in his stomach, and he’s understandably pissed off with himself. He came to give the lover protection, and finds it quickly returned, unused, because the only “threat” is a full-body wax, and doesn’t seem to be Mr. Ashura at all.

Despite himself, when Kurogane comes home, he sends a text: _ I don’t like how he treats you. _

_ Really? _ Fai returns. _ I have a house and nice clothes and never have to pay for a thing in my life. I think that’s very good treatment. When has your lover done the same for you? _

_ Never. _

_ Exactly, darling. Anyway, I’m off for my waxing torture. Be a good boy! I’ll see you at eight. _

Kurogane feels like he is dating this man. He is no one’s bodyguard. He receives another text, but this one is from Tomoyo: _ Are you getting sweet on him? _

He calls to yell at her, but she only laughs hysterically. Kurogane can never win.

* * *

In the office, Kurogane fixes himself a cup of coffee when Xing Huo walks in. As is typical for their interactions, they just nod at each other. She asks, “Is there any coffee left?”

Kurogane shakes the pot. “Yeah. Could get another cup out of this.”

Xing Huo thrusts her mug towards him. He understands this to be a command, which makes him pause, since people in their team rarely ask him for things, all except Tomoyo. But he fills it. She takes a sip. Like Kurogane, she takes her coffee black.

“I don’t like the office’s response to your outing,” Xing Huo tells him quietly.

“Me neither. I don’t even like cake.”

“That is not my meaning.” Xing Huo shakes her head. “I would not want a spectacle made over it. You did not choose to come out.”

Kurogane blinks at her.

“No,” he says. “No, and I didn’t want to.”

Xing Huo looks at him, as if deciding what to say. For a second, Kurogane thinks he sees something like an expression cross her face. He tries discerning what it could be. Anger? Pity?

“If they ever make me a cake,” Xing Huo says, “please remind Sakura that I am vegan, and I can’t have eggs.”

She walks away. Kurogane thinks, as he watches her go, that he knows what he just saw: understanding.

* * *

Moko wakes Kurogane up at five in the morning because she steps all over him and meows. He tries to ignore her until she starts kneading his face, drawing out her tiny, sharp claws. Kurogane jumps right up and she scrambles, meowing excitedly—a ball of white fur. She was his mother’s cat, once, but his mother is dead, and so Kurogane keeps her. Moko is sixteen, but is still a tremendous asshole. Kurogane tells her that much.

She meows at him.

Kurogane wanders to his fridge, taking a rubber lid off a tin of soft cat food. Moko weaves between his legs, meowing demandingly, and he hisses, “You’re _ getting _breakfast.”

_ Meeeeow. Meow. Meeeeeeoooooow. _ Moko’s blue eyes glint in the faint morning light, and when he pours in two spoonfuls—breakfast—and sets it down, she scurries away from the kitchen altogether. Kurogane wishes he understood her. Granted, Kurogane wishes he could understand _ anyone _at all, because people are often confusing and don’t say what they mean. Somehow, this makes him think of Fai.

Kurogane retires to his living room, drawing the blinds up, and looks outside, sitting on his sofa in his underwear. He doesn’t live in the _ worst _part of the city, no, but he lives where a lot of college students have apartments. His neighbor, upstairs, is going for her undergraduate degree in art education, and she talks a lot. She tried to ask him on a date, before, but he declined. He is thirty-one. She is twenty. Nothing good ever comes from that, in his opinion, but she’s a nice girl. Occasionally, he has to let her in, as she “loses” her apartment keys.

Outside, his neighbor across the street (a very old man—he might be two hundred, at this point) sits on his stoop, wearing heavy sunglasses. The man is blind, but he always knows what happens around him. He recognizes Kurogane “based on how he stomps”, apparently, though Kurogane doesn’t think he _ stomps _. Kurogane likes his apartment. He likes the city. He dreamed of living in a penthouse on a skyscraper, but he knows that won’t happen.

Kurogane fiddles with his phone and sends a text. _ Good morning. _

He doesn’t expect an answer. He sets the thing back down and sees Moko finally eating her breakfast. The cat gives him a passing glance and he walks gingerly around her. They have an uneasy peace together. Sometimes, she strikes out against his socks. Sometimes, he yells at her for trying to go into the bathroom whenever he’s in it (he’s accidentally hit her with the door, in the past, because she sits right outside it until he comes out). They are equally confusing to one another.

Kurogane dresses in his room, somewhat awakened by the coffee, and prepares to pull a shift in his office. He works too often. He isn’t due in until 11 AM, but if he goes earlier, he can leave earlier, and he does not procrastinate. He is collecting information about recent activity in Venezuela (everything that has happened after Celes Oil set up shop there), and where he last left off, he had eight hundred female minors reported missing from the country (suspected human trafficking). Most are lower class and only speak Spanish. They are exactly the type who ends up packed across countries, sold into prostitution. He _ strongly _suspects Celes Oil’s involvement, as the same patterns have occurred in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan in the slums around the new rigs.

He picks up his phone, and sees his text answered.

_ Good morning, darling. Sleep well? _

He knows it’s an Agency phone. They’ll see everything. He doesn’t care. Fai is a good distraction, even if Fai is technically his _ case. _He calls the man, and Fai answers, sounding slightly groggy but happy.

“Hey.”

“Good morning, Kurogane! You don’t contact me this early, usually. What brings me the pleasure?” Fai asks. Kurogane snorts, setting Moko’s bowl in the sink. He’ll clean it later. Moko crouches on top of the refrigerator, watching him.

“Cat woke me up. Can’t go back to sleep.”

“What is your cat’s name?” Fai asks. “You never talk about it.”

“Oh. It’s Moko.”

“Moko? I thought you would name your cat something like ‘Thunder’ or ‘Fury’,” Fai remarks, and that makes Kurogane laugh. “Something very masculine.”

“She was my mom’s cat. Took her when my mom passed away. It’s a really shitty name, but it’s hers.”

“Hmm,” Fai murmurs. “I am sorry to hear about your mother.”

“It was a year ago. I’m getting over it.”

They are both quiet for a moment. As if on cue, Moko releases a terrible meow that sounds like a crying man. Fai laughs with surprise.

“Like cats?” Kurogane asks dryly. “I have one free to a good home.”

“Darling, I couldn’t.”

“Positive? She’s deaf. You could talk at her for hours. You’d like each other,” Kurogane says, and he goes to his counter, pocketing his keys. Fai makes an amused hum on the speaker. Kurogane knows he shouldn’t call this man for no reason, as this phone costs the Agency, but it’s nice. It’s just nice. “Sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m sure you’re a very busy man,” Fai decides. Warmly, he adds, “Until tonight, Kurogane.”

“Later.”

He hangs up, and Tomoyo gives him an all-too-knowing look when she visits his office. Kurogane just stares back, looking as neutral as possible. Tomoyo shakes her head, sighing, “What am I supposed to do with you...”

He does his work. Venezuela has eight hundred and fifty missing girls, and six hundred and seventeen missing boys. Meth labs are popping up and vanishing when the Venezuelan police locate them. The cost of heroin is lowering—the supply surpasses the demand—and a new strain of it is growing very, very popular, and that strain is unlike any seen before, as if an expert chemist designed it. Illegal firearms are being seized on record highs, and no one can track the supplier.

Celes Oil is surrounded by death, and Kurogane is going to stop it. He hopes so, at least.

* * *

Kurogane shows up at his designated time—eight in the evening—and is very surprised when Fai does not answer, but another does. Chii Ashura, the Princess of Oil. She meets him at the door in a sleep shirt decorated in a French phrase with enormous, knee-high socks (pants have not made the trip). She has big, bloodshot, glassy eyes, and Kurogane stands before her, feeling particularly uncomfortable. She has her hair in enormous curlers and, in one hand, a glass pipe.

Kurogane clears his throat, explaining, “I’m here for Fai.”

“He’s with Daddy,” Chii says.

“Uh—right,” Kurogane mumbles. Fai did not tell him that. He tries to peer past her, but she is unusually tall, and definitely does not look like she is thirty-some years old, or act like it, as she calls her father ‘Daddy’. “He didn’t tell me that. I came when I was supposed to.”

“That’s gross,” Chii remarks.

“I wasn’t talking about—_ugh_,” Kurogane groans. “Never mind. I’ll just wait for him here. Why are _ you _here, anyway?”

“I’m bored. This one has neat stuff in his place,” Chii replies, shrugging. “Can’t let him talk to you, though. He’ll talk about his stuff for too long. Yeah, I get it—they’re all copies, Fai. _ Anyway. _Come in. Two’s a party.”

She laughs to herself. The phrase is wrong. But Kurogane does come in, after all, and Chii flops down on Fai’s leather couch, putting a replica of a Greek theater mask—_“ _The Greeks never allowed women to play female roles, and this is a copy of a ‘female’ mask from the third century, B.C.E.! Can you imagine thinking this was feminine?” Fai wondered—on her face and kicking her legs like a child. The glass coffee table, before her, has a bag of weed, a half-empty bottle of vodka, three different lighters, and Fai’s leftover pasta salad (still in the tray, not removed, with a fork in it).

“Looks like you’re having fun,” Kurogane says, not sure of what else to say. She tilts the mask on her forehead like a cap. He notices her pale eyebrows—_ she _is a natural blonde, unlike Fai.

“Sure am,” she agrees. “You don’t have any fun, huh?”

“I do.”

“Daddy says I have too much fun,” Chii complains, “and he _ hates _when I have fun. Says it looks bad for the company. So I have to have fun inside all the time.”

“...I’m Kurogane.”

“That name is too long. You should change it.”

“Don’t think that’s in the cards.”

“Go by a nickname,” Chii continues. “I go by ‘Chii’. Daddy says it’s very cute.”

“I’m sure he does.”

By now, Kurogane has determined that while he can’t find anything _ wrong _ in the legal sense with Mr. Ashura, he _ really _doesn’t like the man. Some strange things are going on in his household and his relationships. Kurogane, somehow, has the distinct feeling that the King of Oil is dressing his male lover to look like a more polished version of his daughter.

“He won’t be happy that you took the mask out of its case,” he says. He recalls the mask sitting on a stone platform, encased in glass, with a label of the thing’s history, like a museum exhibition. Fai had been too excited to talk about that. Though Kurogane retains little of the information, he knows Fai is very delicate with his treasures. Chii just laughs and lights her bowl.

“Well, he’s never happy, anyway,” Chii says, sounding slightly choked. Her eyes water. Kurogane has never thought of Fai as ‘never happy’, he realizes, and he’s curious that she should describe him that way.

“Why?”

“All the Venezuela bullshit!”

He’s struck gold. Kurogane wants to jump around and congratulate himself, but he is a very principled man, so he settles for taking a seat on the couch beside her, muttering, “What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s _ boring_,” Chii complains. “Daddy’s building an empire in Venezuela, and he wants to take Fai there to see it. Fai _ hates _ planes and he _ hates _leaving the country, but Daddy always gets what he wants. Blah blah blah. You get the picture.”

“Why does he wanna go to Venezuela?”

“Daddy has some business to take care of,” Chii replies casually, shrugging. She offers him the bowl, but Kurogane shakes his head. “Fai’s a chemist. He knows all sorts of stuff. Daddy likes him, too.”

A _ chemist_? “Isn’t he a PR consultant?”

Chii puts a hand on her mouth, as if surprised by it. She starts nodding frantically. Bingo. Fai is a chemist; Fai is no ‘PR consultant’. Kurogane was right. He tilts his head. “Promise you won’t tell him I said that. Oh my God. Daddy’s gonna kill me for this.”

Kurogane ‘zips’ his mouth shut, and she turns on the TV, turning the volume up to an ungodly level. Kurogane wonders if all the blonds he meets are going to be partially deaf, as Fai does the same exact thing. Chii lights her bowl, sitting cross-legged, and tries to make Kurogane wear the Greek mask for about twenty minutes (it doesn’t work).

When Fai comes back to his suite, he looks startled to see her, and he takes her out of the room, but Kurogane can hear the man gently lecturing her. Kurogane returns the mask to its proper place, and when Chii leaves, Fai gives him a very, very tired smile.

“Venezuela, then?” Kurogane asks.

Fai surprises him by crossing the room and grabbing Kurogane by the collar, whispering, “Not a word in here.”

Kurogane waits for an explanation.

“But a word,” Fai continues quietly, “in _ here_.”

Fai drags Kurogane to his bedroom, and Kurogane has no idea what to expect (well, he has _ some _ idea), but Fai starts kissing him very hungrily, and Kurogane, a terrible bodyguard, lets it happen. Kurogane breaks the rules, again, and discreetly flips off his wire, figuring the Agency will understand exactly what he is doing and why—he also would rather them _ not _hear what could happen. He grabs Fai’s face and they kiss like they’re both starved of something vital, and perhaps they are. Fai pushes them past his bedroom door and closes it behind them, abruptly breaking their mouths apart and wiping his lips. He grins.

“Sorry about that,” he says. “It had to look convincing.”

Kurogane just wants to kiss him, again, but pauses. It ‘had to look convincing’. “What?”

“Nothing, darling,” Fai murmurs. He sits on his bed, then, and kicks off his shoes. He starts fiddling with his tie, and when he gets it off, he takes a breath as if he hasn’t breathed properly in a few hours. “Venezuela.”

“The hell just happened?”

“My bodyguard and I, who are _ very obviously _attracted to each other, shared a passionate kiss and fled to the bedroom to finish it,” Fai says patiently. “Don’t be so daft, Kurogane. You wanted to know about Venezuela.”

Kurogane flips his wire back on while Fai looks at the ceiling, oblivious, but he’s unhappy, somehow, that he has to do that. “Go on.”

“Mr. Ashura wants to take me there for business,” Fai sighs.

“Not pleasure?”

Fai laughs dryly. “No. It is rare that he takes me anywhere for pleasure,” he mutters. “Mine, at least. His is the priority.”

Kurogane looks away. “What’s the business?”

“Opium.” Kurogane is startled, but Fai sits there, smiling like he is weary of smiling, and Kurogane has no idea what he’s supposed to say. That confession is exactly what they need in the Agency, and Fai has freely given it. “Not that I have any genuine proof, of course, but he has fields in Afghanistan, and I know some of the income is _ not _coming from oil.”

“...So.”

“So,” Fai echoes, “Venezuela.”

* * *

Tomoyo is actually losing her mind, now. As soon as he comes into her office, she leaps from her chair, lecturing him (with strong words) to _ never _turn off his wire, even if he thinks “he’s getting lucky”, and Kurogane is very glad no one realized he has turned the thing off before this. Tomoyo paces, shouting at him to sit down (he does) and clutches papers in his hands.

“Opium!” she exclaims. “Imagine if you kept it off for _ that!_”

“I turned it back on,” he reminds her lamely.

“I don’t _ give a shit_, Kurogane—we might not have heard that!” she snaps. “This is _ huge! Opium! _ If we can _ prove _ he’s involved in the opium trade, we can get that guy for good! We just need _ proof!_”

“Fai doesn’t have it.”

“So he says!”

“He also said I can’t come along.” Kurogane frowns; he had asked, and Fai shook his head. “I can’t get any information in Venezuela unless I _ sneak along_, and _ that _won’t happen.”

“No, it won’t,” she confirms. She glares at him. “There _ will_, however, be a press conference, and the media has a special invitation.”

He blinks. “And?”

Tomoyo plucks two lanyards from her desk that are labeled in Spanish—_la prensa_—and shakes them in the air. Kurogane knows exactly what the plan is, then, and he groans. Tomoyo opens one of her drawers and pulls out a digital camera. “I’m a journalist. You’re my photographer. As you can see, _ unlike you, _I’m very good at my job.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m _ really _ serious,” Tomoyo returns. “In three weeks, _ we _are going to Venezuela.”

“This is stupid,” Kurogane tells her. “Fai’s not dumb. He might not recognize you, but he’ll recognize _ me. _Send someone else.”

“There _ is _no one else.”

“Excuse me,” says a voice from the door, and Kurogane nearly jumps out of his seat from surprise. Tomoyo just smiles calmly at the source: Xing Huo, clasping a folder to her chest, tucking a tuft of black hair behind an ear. “When you aren’t busy, Tomoyo, I would like to speak to you.”

Tomoyo leans back in her swivel chair, locking her hands behind her neck, elbows out. “I’m not busy! I was just finishing up with this one, here.”

Kurogane gets up as she finishes the sentence. Before he leaves, he looks Xing Huo in the eye and mutters, “Good luck. She’s fucking crazy.”

He leaves.

* * *

They go to Venezuela. Kurogane learns very basic Spanish phrases to say—_Hola _ (hello), _ Me llamo Kurogane _ (I’m called Kurogane), _ Soy fotógrafo _(I’m a photographer)—but he doesn’t know what people might say in return. Tomoyo, surprisingly, knows a lot of Spanish, but Tomoyo is a mystery to him. She surprises him daily.

In Venezuela, the agents venture to the capital, Caracas, where the press conference will take place. They maneuver past other people— people who are _ actually _ journalists and photographers—until they find a good spot: not exactly in the front, so they won’t be noticed, but not too far back, so they can see what they need to see. Mr. Ashura stands beneath a banner—_Celes Oil 2015_—with a dark grey, tailored suit, a ruby tie, golden cufflinks, and a very professional smile. For fifty-six, he looks very good.

“In the flesh,” Tomoyo whispers.

And there he is. Kurogane has never been so close to Mr. Ashura. Ironically enough, he is closest to the King of Oil in Venezuela, even though Kurogane has _ driven to the man’s house _and grown close with the King’s favorite (maybe?) lover. Yet they have never met. When he sees the King, Kurogane can’t help but heat up with irrational anger.

“What an asshole,” Kurogane whispers.

“El rey,” someone says, clicking away with a large, black camera. Kurogane remembers what he’s supposed to do, then, and brings the camera to his face, staring out the lens. He has no idea what a good photograph looks like, so he snaps aimlessly at the King of Oil as Mr. Ashura approaches his podium.

“Hola, Venezuela,” Mr. Ashura greets them, and the media claps or cheers, depending on whether or not their hands are wrapped around cameras or notebooks. Kurogane scowls behind his camera, but he _ does _notice someone near the back of the platform, speaking with a Venezuelan man, and that someone has bleached blond hair, a ruby button-up, and a dark grey tie.

“There’s your boyfriend,” Tomoyo mutters under her breath.

“Shut up.”

Fai shakes the stranger’s hand, and his smile, too, is as professional as the King’s. Fai disappears with the man behind a curtain as Mr. Ashura continues speaking in Spanish Kurogane can’t understand, but he knows it’s probably a great deal of bullshit, anyway. Kurogane thinks of opium; Mr. Ashura speaks of oil. The Venezuelan press asks questions and Kurogane doesn’t know the answers, but Tomoyo narrates for him.

“They’re asking when he’ll hire actual Venezuelans,” she says. “He says he has plans to do that in the upcoming year. Everybody knows it’s a lie.”

“Obviously.”

“Nothing about heroin or opium,” she adds, “but drug trafficking here has _ really _spiked in a short amount of time. Lots of imports of Afghan opium. If your boy’s a chemist, he might have some part in turning that into heroin and its new derivative. Like I said, he’s not just a ‘boy toy’.”

Kurogane hates it.

“They ask what wages and benefits to expect.” She scoffs at that. “He’s a cheapskate. No benefits, there. But he’s phrasing it in a roundabout way to _ sound _good, where he’s really not saying anything at all.”

“Why do you know Spanish?”

“Love languages. Spanish is fun,” she hums. “I know Arabic, Mandarin, Portuguese, Japanese, English, and Spanish. I have a thing for languages. You have a thing for blonds. Everybody’s different.”

“I don’t have a thing for blonds.”

“True,” she returns. “There’s just the one.”

Kurogane glowers, snapping photographs, but she’s right.

* * *

He gets a text from an unknown number, but he knows, very well, who the person is: _Darling, I think you might be stalking me._

Tomoyo rolls over on her side. They share a hotel room, but have two separate beds. The room is nothing special in itself, but it has a mirror in the shower for whatever reason (it makes him uncomfortable) and a coffee maker with powdered creamer packets nearby. Tomoyo has a cup of the stuff in one hand while she taps on a keyboard with the other, but she hears his phone vibrate and maneuvers, rolling to look at him. “Who’s texting you?”

_ Who is your friend? She looks very cute. _

Her phone buzzes, then, as she receives all the texts he does on the Agency phone. Tomoyo raises her eyebrows. “Oh. That’s not good at all. I thought we were a good distance back.”

“Not _ enough_,” Kurogane retorts.

_ You aren’t a photographer, but you looked very cute, playing dress-up. _

“I thought you were good at your job,” Kurogane hisses. “I _ knew _we shouldn’t have come. We should have sent others.”

“Fine. We should have, but we didn’t, because, in case you didn’t somehow notice, we’re incredibly understaffed.”

“You fucked us over.”

_ Something wrong, Kurogane? _

Kurogane grimaces, typing, _ You’re the one playing dress-up, asshole. _

“Kurogane, you have absolutely no tact,” Tomoyo exclaims, and she thrusts out her hand, gesturing for the cellphone. “Let me do this.”

“What? No.”

“I’m your superior,” she reminds him. “Give me the phone.”

He obeys, but he glares at her. She types something and sends it, waiting. The phone buzzes (and a minute later, hers does, too). She texts something else. Another response. “What are you saying to him?”

“Nothing.” But she grins.

“_What did you say? _”

“Kurogane,” Tomoyo hums, “I _ am _a professional. Trust me.”

When he gets the phone back, he frantically checks the conversation, and he leaps off the bed, but she leaps faster, dashing away and laughing. He is _ not _laughing. He chases her while she abandons her coffee on the nightstand runs around, giggling, celebrating her own terrible deeds.

“You’re a bastard! A _ bastard! _” Kurogane shouts.

Tomoyo had texted, _ Look—I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I got worried. I came to Venezuela because I’m an idiot. _

Fai had answered, _ Oh, you shouldn’t have! _

On the bed, Kurogane’s phone has an additional text—one he will see an hour later, after he has screamed at Tomoyo and she has won the argument. He tells her that she is inappropriate, nosy, and irresponsible; she replies that she has “saved both our asses” and that she wasn’t lying, anyway, “because you’re an idiot”. She’s correct, though Kurogane won’t acknowledge it because he has too much pride and an ego to protect. When they have settled down, Tomoyo picks up her phone and turns pale, immediately flipping her laptop back open and typing furiously.

“What is it?” he asks.

“I’m getting his location,” she replies.

“What? Why?”

She points to his phone, and he picks it up. When he read’s Fai’s message, he goes completely cold.

_ Help me. _

* * *

Fai has a black eye, and that’s not even the worst of it. Kurogane could hear the screaming before he even reached the right floor. Fai is staying in a hotel with Mr. Ashura and the King’s men, but something has gone wrong, and Fai asks for help from a strange cellphone and Tomoyo drives Kurogane there, waiting in the car. Before he gets out of the passenger’s seat, she grabs his wrist.

“Got your gun?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She gives him a worried glance. “Look, don’t _ kill _anybody, but protect yourself. Protect the guy, too, if it’s necessary.”

“Will do.”

“Be careful,” she warns, and he nods, leaving. He finds no one at the front desk, so he finds an elevator and hits the seventh floor button, waiting. As soon as he reaches the floor and the doors spread open, he hears shouting, screaming, cursing, and he fingers the gun in his holster and _ runs. _

He meets Mr. Ashura in the flesh, this time, and Fai has a black eye and is screaming in a language Kurogane doesn’t recognize (Mr. Ashura yells back in the same one). One of the King’s own bodyguards recognizes Kurogane and gives him an irritated look, as if the man has dealt with this too many times, but he lets Kurogane into the room. The screaming abruptly stops, and Kurogane finds two pairs of eyes on him. Fai’s glance is unreadable, though a bit desperate, and Mr. Ashura’s is entirely cold.

“Oh,” Mr. Ashura says mildly. “I hadn’t realized you brought your friend.”

Fai glares at the King, and Kurogane sees tears on the lover’s red face. Mr. Ashura only nods, then, and leaves the room before Kurogane can yell or demand to know what’s going on—a few men follow the King, and a door shuts, and Kurogane stands, alone, with Fai. Fai wipes his face with the back of his hand, smiling bitterly. “You came, after all.”

“You needed help.”

“I did,” Fai confirms, and he tries to smile.

“You don’t have to smile all the time,” Kurogane scolds. “If you don’t feel happy, don’t smile.”

“I am always happy.”

“Chii says you never are.”

“_Kurogane_,” Fai says, as if begging him not to press further.

“Fine,” Kurogane says, and he glowers at the King’s remaining men. They have stood by, allowing this to happen to Fai. He leads Fai out of the room, and when they approach the elevator, Fai sinks against him. “Fai.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Fai replies. “Be a good bodyguard and get me somewhere safe. That’s all I ask.”

“Where?”

“I have a room on the third floor.”

Kurogane sighs. “Fine. Third floor it is, then.”

The elevator slides open, and the men board it. Kurogane presses the third floor button while Fai stands in the corner, covering his swollen eye with one hand. His shirt is partially unbuttoned, revealing a hairless, pale chest. He clears his throat. “Hey.”

Fai says nothing.

“Want me to stay with you?”

Fai nods softly.

“Okay. I will.”

When they reach Fai’s room, Kurogane texts Tomoyo—_He wants me to stay the night, so you can go back. I’ll keep the phone on—_and Tomoyo warns him to be careful, once more, which he agrees to do. He tucks his phone away as Fai opens a mini-fridge, retrieving an icepack. Kurogane looks at the blue, satin bed, and glumly thinks that even this hotel room is nicer than his own apartment (and he must remind Sakura that housesitting does not mean Mr. Li can spend the night, too).

“Come here, Kurogane.”

Kurogane stirs out of his envious trance and sees Fai beckoning him over, an icepack in his free hand. Kurogane approaches, and Fai touches the man’s face, holding his chin. Fai smiles lightly, then, and presses a kiss to Kurogane’s mouth. Kurogane is an idiot, so he returns the gesture. Fai grabs Kurogane’s shirt, then, as they kiss, and in a flurry, he snatches out the wire and throws it to the ground, stomping on it, shattering Kurogane’s lifeline into plastic pieces. He shoves Kurogane away, smiling coldly, and takes a seat on the satin bed.

Kurogane panics. “What the—”

“You’re very predictable,” Fai remarks, and he grasps around the bed, pulling the sheets back. He finds his cigarette case and pops it open, pressing the icepack against his wounded eye. Kurogane realizes, suddenly, that he is the least dangerous man in the room. _ Fai _is the dangerous one. “It was very nice to make believe, wasn’t it?”

He swallows. “How long did you know?”

“Three months.” Kurogane has been a ‘bodyguard’ for three months. He feels sick. He wants to grab his phone, to call Tomoyo, to ask for an extraction, but Fai is sitting so calmly, looking handsome and cruelly smart, and _ he knew all along _. “Agent Youou ‘Kurogane’ Suwa—I don’t believe we had a proper introduction, did we?”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, darling,” Fai chuckles. “That is everyone’s question.”

Fai grins, lighting his cigarette.

“Checkmate,” he says brightly.


	2. The Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane goes missing, and panic ensues.

Kurogane has a beer with Tomoyo for the first time in a bar, still dressed from work in a button-up and slacks, while she wears a vibrant, purple suit. She orders a fuzzy navel; he settles for whatever is cheapest on tap. Around them, bar-goers entertain themselves. A man buys a woman a drink, which she declines politely. A man cheers at the game on television with his friends. People are talking, drinking, and Kurogane does not fit in this space— he is tall, broody, and quiet. He has known Tomoyo for ten days, and this is his second week with the Agency. She downs her drink a bit too quickly and polishes it off with a happy sigh. Kurogane, on the other hand, sips. She watches him, and he watches the door.

She has not known him long, but finds him unusually observant, alert. His eyes are always on windows and doors, waiting for a threat. But she is the same, if more subtle. There are people she loves and protects, and has a gut feeling about this man: he is not unlike her.

The door opens, but no threat comes. Kurogane keeps watching. She taps her fingernails on the bar, drawing his attention back. “Mr. Suwa.”

He glances at her. “What?”

“Relax.” (He doesn’t.)

“I’m relaxed.” (He isn’t.)

“I’m just saying.”

“Stop saying.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Mr. Suwa,” she chuckles. He sips his drink, glowering briefly at her before resuming his watch. “We’re in a bar. We should be talking.”

“You said we had to check something out.”

“Yep. Drinks,” she replies. He frowns; she has tricked him into an outing. “Your mother ever tell you your face might freeze that way?”

“Hmmph.” (She probably has.)

“How’s your mother?”

“Leave therapy to therapists,” is Kurogane’s brisk retort, but she is getting somewhere, then. Kurogane pauses. He admits, “Sick as hell.”

She doesn’t give him pity, and he doesn’t want it. She nods.

“Mine are dead. Both of them.” He nods at that, too. She doesn’t want pity either, and he is smart enough to stay quiet. She’s seen his file, anyway; his father was brutally murdered when he was a child. His mother is the only surviving parent. He is old enough not to need her, but to want her, all the same. “Nothing spectacularly tragic, either—a car accident when I was twenty.”

“Oh.”

“Yep—oh.” She smiles lightly and shakes her empty glass at the unoccupied bartender, mouthing _ more _. “I remember when I was your age. I could drink my head off and never get a hangover. What a waste.”

He gives her a look she knows all too well: no one believes how old she is.

“I’m forty-two,” she says.

“Like hell you’re forty-two.” She shows him her license, pointing at the birthdate, and he blinks. “...Oh.”

“How old did you think I was?”

“Don’t know. Thirty.”

“Flattery will not work on your supervisor,” she hums, and the bartender brings her a new glass, taking her old one. She thanks the worker with a quick nod and turns, following Kurogane’s eyes to the door. A woman has entered—tall, slim, pale, black-haired with blunt bangs and impractically long hair. The woman briefly catches her eye, smiles, and ventures to a full table of patrons who seem particularly strung out. They greet her warmly, and Kurogane—proving to be smart—immediately looks to his superior for information. “Not our concern, right now. We’re off duty.”

“Who is she?”

“People call her ‘Miss Yuuko’. Probably an alias. That reminds me—stop calling me ‘Miss Daidouji’. No one says that. It’s Tomoyo.”

“Then call me Kurogane,” he says. “I hate being formal.”

“Me, too.” She shrugs. Kurogane looks at a suspected drug dealer over his shoulder, and the patrons are buying her drinks. “Leave her be. Another time, and I’ll explain.”

She will encounter that woman later, two years after this meeting, when Kurogane vanishes and her world deflates with a wheeze, shrinking from the space he leaves.

“Fine,” he grunts.

“Fine,” she agrees, and downs her drink.

* * *

Kurogane drops off the face of the planet, and all it takes is one second. Tomoyo hears a perfectly normal conversation while she drives back to the hotel, which turns in an obvious direction—Fai’s voice tenderly beckons Kurogane over, and Tomoyo knows Kurogane well enough to know exactly what he does. She cringes to the sound, as the wire pours through her rented car’s speakers. Static hisses through the feed, and it suddenly stops. She sits in their hotel parking lot. Turned off. The idiot turned it off. She sends a text: _ Do you not listen to anything I say? _

She will tell Sakura to make him thirty rainbow cakes as punishment, she thinks. Sakura will be delighted to make them. Maybe not thirty, but she can revise.

He doesn’t answer the text, which might not be unusual if he’s doing what she thinks, and she goes back to their room. She waits for twenty minutes. Nothing. Twenty-five minutes. Nothing. Forty. If Kurogane and Fai are doing something in that room, it’s taking an awfully long time. Fifty-six minutes. She texts him again—_Turn your wire back on RIGHT NOW. _She waits two hours, hearing nothing, and there is a bad feeling in her gut.

She has worked for the Agency long enough to trust her intuition, and her intuition is better than most. Sometimes, she fancies that she knows the future. The future that comes to her mind in Venezuela is not a good one at all.

She sends another text: _ Good for you, now turn the feed back on. _

Nothing. Kurogane always answers promptly, but he is not answering at all. She opens up her laptop, about to check his location when her phone buzzes. She jumps, grabbing it, but balks when she reads the message.

_ We were wro _

Unfinished, sent regardless. She scrambles on the laptop, but finds the phone isn’t giving off any signal at all. No pingbacks. Kurogane must have managed to send that scrap just before the phone was taken, or destroyed, or before he—she halts the thought before it grows legs. Tomoyo sits on the bed, considering the absence in the room. Kurogane should be here. She was stupid. She thought it was convincing enough, that Fai and Mr. Ashura had some violent spat and Kurogane was only staying as a gentle kindness, but—she sends him another message (_About what? _), and there’s no reply.

She dials a number, and Sakura answers. Sakura is housesitting for Kurogane, keeping a watch on his mother’s cat, and Tomoyo hears Syaoran in the background. Evidently, Kurogane’s order—that housesitting is strictly a one-person job—has gone ignored in California.

“Tomoyo?”

“I sent you the last of the feed,” she says, careful to keep a neutral voice. Sakura will know soon enough, but she will be less diligent if she knows _ now_. Tomoyo needs this girl to type up everything. “Write down everything, even bits that you can’t understand. I think I heard Dutch in there, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Of course.” In the background, Moko has an awful meow that sounds like a man being run over. Syaoran laughs, but stops, seemingly recalling that he isn’t supposed to be in Kurogane’s apartment. Sakura shushes her boyfriend, making some irritated noises, before pulling back to the call. “Isn’t it late in Venezuela? Has something happened?”

“Type up the transcripts,” Tomoyo orders. “Email them and text me when you’re done. I’ll explain later.”

“Is it Mr. Suwa?”

“Sakura, please just do this,” is Tomoyo’s reply, and she hangs up. She fiddles with her gun —nervous habit—and unloads and reloads the thing a few times, facing an awful predicament. The truth is that she shouldn’t have gone to Venezuela at all without her entire team, but clearances for all of them would take much longer than two: Kurogane’s and hers. So she only took him. Nothing was supposed to happen. She knew enough about hiding in plain sight that they should _ never _have been seen at all.

She calls Kurogane’s cellphone, and it goes to voicemail.

“This isn’t funny,” she says. “Call me.”

Tomoyo hangs up, tucking her gun into her holster, and throws the curtains open. The sky is still black, and Caracas is bright with artificial lamplight and headlights and neon-lit store names. Tomoyo thinks of the empty bed in the room, of the man she took to Venezuela, and curses to herself.

_ Kurogane, _ she texts, _ I’m sorry. _

He doesn’t answer.

* * *

She saves Kurogane’s life three times.

The first two are in a literal sense—she knocks him behind a car when a random street shooting starts, and the bullet whizzes over their heads. They aren’t on duty, but Kurogane has his gun, and opens fire when she tells him not to. He kills the shooter. It’s self-defense, but it isn’t, but Tomoyo doesn’t contest it. She does, however, come into his office and tell him he _ is not allowed _to shoot people because he has ‘daddy issues’. Kurogane, obviously, takes that as well as he could have. He screams at her; she threatens to remove him from the Agency; he decides shout-whispering means she can’t do that (and she doesn’t).

In the beginning, he was wild and hungry for violence. His father was shot before him when he was young, and the killer was never caught, and Tomoyo is right to believe this is where he picked up his violent streak. Kurogane attacks four suspects and is suspended, and it is only by Tomoyo’s blessing that he ever comes back to the Agency. She presses him about his mother, but he doesn’t break on that—she’s “just sick”, and Tomoyo “should mind her damn business”.

“I can’t mind my damn business,” Tomoyo snarls, “because _ yours _is getting in my hair.”

He agrees to therapy.

The second time she saves his life, she forces him to stay an hour later because she has a “bad feeling”, and he learns that a deadly car accident took place on his typical route home (he would have died). Kurogane shrugs it off at the time, but something changes after that, and he takes her very seriously. If she ever has “a bad feeling”, he listens. After that, she realizes he has let her into a rare space: she has become his friend. They share drinks, again, and she asks about his personal life as a curiosity. He says nothing beyond “it’s fine”, and if she presses more, he tells her “it’s very fine”.

Therapy is working, evidently, because nobody ends up in a hospital from his hands. He gives her flowers on her birthday with a small note, a scrawled ‘thanks’, and thinks she has made great progress.

The third time she saves his life, it is not so literal, but his mother dies. Kurogane becomes unrecognizable and stops grooming, growing a beard, growing out his hair, and wearing the same clothes over and over again without a wash (she smells it, and it’s not very nice). He sleeps in his office. She convinces him to go home and asks him if he has anyone to talk to. His therapist has stopped seeing him, she learns, and she asks if he has friends.

He looks at her with such hatred that she figures out the answer. “Fine. You have at least one. Talk to me.”

Kurogane does not talk to her. He does not open up, but he has acquired an old and deaf cat from his late mother and she teaches him how to care for the thing. She convinces him to take time off and watches the fiery man drift into a low depression. A bad feeling tells her to come to his house one evening, so she obeys it, and she finds him cleaning his gun with his license and certificates on his kitchen table. She doesn’t have to ask to know what he plans, but it evidently fails, and she forces him into therapy again. He hates her for it, but when her birthday comes a few months later, she finds flowers on her desk.

They aren’t repaired, but it is working well enough. He comes back to life from Celes Oil and obsesses, eventually, on a blond man who propositions him, confuses him, outs him, and gives the Agency the fatal proof they needed: Kurogane has a heart, after all, but it appears at the wrong time.

They are friends. It is rare for Kurogane to have friends, and Tomoyo cherishes the place he holds for her. She never realizes that she holds one for him, as well, until the wire feed ends and he sends his last, abrupt text message.

She has to save him again. There must be a fourth time. She gets back in the car.

* * *

Sakura meets Mr. Suwa through work and she’s terrified of him. She has never met such a tall man in her life. He’s enormous. He has a mean look on his face all the time. He yells at everyone—even Tomoyo. She decides, then, that she will just avoid him. She only changes her mind after Syaoran Li joins the team, trying very earnestly to make Mr. Suwa like him. She falls in love with Syaoran almost too easily, and she forgets to be afraid of Mr. Suwa. She realizes he just looks mean, and that his voice is just naturally loud. She decides, finally, to try liking Mr. Suwa, and it works.

At the heart of it, Sakura decides that he is trying to be a good man who does the right things. Even so, he does a lot of bad things and gets them into trouble constantly. Sakura admits that she gets angry at him: no one else behaves like he does, brash, reckless, with very few consequences. Then, his mother dies, and she takes notice of it. Tomoyo becomes a mother, herself, in effect; Sakura watches on while Mr. Suwa drifts off and their superior shakes the life back into him. After that, after some time, she’s the first to see the flowers on Tomoyo’s desk—bluebells. Mr. Suwa stops striking others and follows everyone’s rules. There is a difference.

Mr. Suwa only puts up with Sakura, Syaoran, Xing Huo, and Carla (Sakura nearly forgot that California also had white people until Carla joined them), but it’s not the same. He _ likes _ Tomoyo. He only _ tolerates _ them. Still, Sakura is the one he calls to take care of Moko, so she thinks she might be slightly more than tolerated. He gives her a spare key and tells her that “Mr. Li is _ not _invited”. She invites Syaoran, naturally.

She isn’t on duty at all when Tomoyo calls. It’s 12:30 AM in California and nearly 3 AM in Venezuela. The time alone tells her something’s wrong. Tomoyo’s authoritative snarl only reinforces the idea. Sakura should be paid overtime, she thinks, and she turns on her computer while Syaoran brews up coffee in the mini-kitchen. Moko is intrigued by the young man and attempts to trip him the entire time, and Syaoran is too polite to scold a cat, even a deaf one.

Sakura smiles at that. She puts her earphones in and starts the last of the feed; it’s thirty- eight minutes long, which is unusual. The wire creates new files every sixty minutes. It must have been turned off just before that. She starts typing.

T.D.: I’m getting his location.

K.S.: What? Why?

[30 second pause, T.D. typing.]

K.S.: Holy shit. Holy shit.

T.D.: Has he ever done this?

K.S.: No. Shit. Shit_ . _

[K.S. stomping.]

T.D.: I need you to calm down.

K.S.: He sent this an hour ago. What if we’re too late?

T.D.: Aha! Cayena-Caracas Hotel.

K.S.: We need to go. Now.

T.D.: Kurogane, you need to breathe.

K.S.: I knew that guy was hurting him—I knew it!

[T.D. sighing.]

T.D.: I’ll drive.

[T.D. and K.S. walking. Door closing, locking. T.D. and K.S. walking without talking. Elevator boarded, buttons pressed. Dings for each floor reached. Elevator opens.]

T.D.: I know you’re worried.

K.S.: Save it.

[Automatic doors opening. T.D. and K.S. walking. Car beeps. Car doors opening and closing. Engine starting.]

T.D.: Directions to Cayena-Caracas Hotel.

Car Navigator: Starting route to Cayena-Caracas Hotel.

[T.D. and K.S. in car, not playing music. No speaking for fifteen minutes. Car stops.]

T.D.: Got your gun?

K.S.: Yeah.

T.D.: Okay. Look. Don’t kill anybody, but protect yourself. Protect the guy, too, if it’s necessary.

K.S.: Will do.

T.D.: Be careful.

Sakura pauses at that line, recognizing a tinge of concern she has never heard from Tomoyo. Tomoyo is never worried. Sakura swallows, sensing something bad ahead. She hits ‘play’ again.

[K.S. boarding elevator. Seven dings—K.S. goes to seventh floor. Loud voices in distance. K.S. running. K.S. knocking on door loudly.]

U.I.: You aren’t supposed to be here.

K.S.: Let me in. He asked me to come.

[Men screaming (_ Sorry, I can’t understand the language here. It could be Swedish or Finnish. We should send this to the translators _.). One is M.A., the other is F.F.]

M.A.: Oh. I hadn’t realized you brought your friend.

[Someone walking. A door closing. F.F. sniffling.]

F.F.: You came, after all.

K.S.: You needed help.

F.F.: I did.

K.S.: You don’t have to smile all the time. If you don’t feel happy, don’t smile.

F.F.: I am always happy.

K.S.: Chii says you never are.

F.F.: Kurogane.

K.S.: Fine.

[K.S. and F.F. leaving room. Door closing. K.S. and F.F. walking. Button pressed for elevator.]

K.S.: Fai.

F.F.: I don’t want to talk. Be a good bodyguard and get me somewhere safe. That’s all I ask.

K.S.: Where?

F.F.: I have a room on the third floor.

K.S.: Fine. Third floor it is, then.

[Elevator opens. K.S. and F.F. board it. Button pressed. Elevator starts descending.]

K.S.: Hey. Want me to stay with you?

[F.F. not talking. Assume F.F. nods.]

K.S.: Okay. I will.

[Elevator has final ding and opens. K.S. and F.F. walking. A door unlocking and opening. K.S. and F.F. walk in. K.S. getting something out of pocket (probably texting), puts it back. Sound of refrigerator opening and shutting. K.S. sighing.]

F.F.: Come here, Kurogane.

[K.S. walking. F.F. and K.S. standing close, evident by audible breathing sounds. A kiss. Whirring noise. Wire possibly removed. Loud static.]

The feed stops right there, and Sakura emails the transcript to Tomoyo. Something happened, but the feed sounds innocent up until its final five seconds. The wire must have been taken out. Would Mr. Suwa do that? Sakura doesn’t know. She doesn’t really know Mr. Suwa at all, she realizes, even as she watches the man’s cat attempt to climb up Syaoran’s shoulders and onto his head. Syaoran offers her coffee as she removes the earphones.

“What is happening?” he asks, and Moko is wrapped around his neck, clinging to his shirt with her painful nails. He has scratches on his face. Sakura shakes her head, taking the mug. She is in Mr. Suwa’s house when Mr. Suwa goes missing, though she doesn’t realize it, then.

“I don’t know,” Sakura admits. “I have a few ideas. Either Mr. Suwa is in a lot of trouble, or had sex and turned off his wire for some privacy.”

Syaoran flushes a lovely color. She feels bad, then, that she and Syaoran have used Mr. Suwa’s house for the latter purpose. Mr. Suwa’s couch will not soon forget it.

“With Tomoyo?” Syaoran asks, and she’s so surprised that she laughs, shaking her head. “Oh. I just thought, perhaps, since he insists he isn’t gay...”

“Lord, no. Definitely not. I’m talking about Flowright.”

“Oh.” He pauses. “_Oh. _”

“Syaoran,” she mutters, and she motions to him. He comes closer. She kisses him, and Moko flies off his shoulders, dashing onto the couch and clumsily latching onto Sakura’s head. She screams, trying to bat the thing off, and Syaoran pleads politely with the deaf cat to “be reasonable, now”.

And he’s an idiot, but she loves him.

* * *

“I fucked up,” Tomoyo confesses. “I fucked up.”

“Very well.” Her sister’s voice is cool, deep, calm—everything Tomoyo _ should _be right now, but can’t, because Kurogane is missing. Her sister—the Agency Director, and Tomoyo—the Lower Head of International Business Intelligence. Kendappa always finds people where Tomoyo fails. “I cannot send your team to Venezuela without the proper clearances. Two agents? Permissible. Your entire team is not.”

“Flowright took him. It has to be bad. I know it is.”

“Tomoyo,” Kendappa reminds her, coldly, “I cannot override international protocol because of your hunches. I did enough in sending you there. I will not risk anything further.”

“He’s gone. Don’t you understand? I was supposed to protect him.”

“Your failure is not my responsibility. You are coming back to California, and we will take the proper steps in retrieving Mr. Suwa. You cannot attempt extraction alone.” Kendappa pauses, and Tomoyo glances at her rearview mirror. A nondescript, black car follows her. It has followed her since she left the hotel parking lot. “You _ know _the protocol.”

“I can’t go back without him.” Tomoyo takes a left, testing the vehicle behind her. It turns on a blinker, heading into the left lane. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I can’t go back while he’s still here.”

“You will. Your flight will leave tomorrow afternoon. I just arranged it.”

“Someone’s following me.”

“Lose them.”

“That’s the idea,” Tomoyo mutters. The car follows her left turn, so she goes straight for a while, but takes the next left turn she finds. She’ll go in a circle; if it follows, she’ll know this isn’t coincidental. Her gut tells her it isn’t. “Venezuelan Intelligence know about this?”

“Yes,” Kendappa replies. “They know not to interfere.”

“Look likes an Agency car.” It does. It’s the same model as the one she rents. Its windshield is tinted too dark, and she can’t see the driver. “Anyone else sent over I should know about?”

“No.”

The car behind her follows her, taking a left turn. She’ll drive back to the parking lot if she has to.

“Window’s tinted. Same model as my rental,” Tomoyo says quickly.

“Take a circle around.”

She takes another left. It does, too.

“Okay,” Tomoyo grunts. “They are _ really _following me.”

“Lose them,” Kendappa repeats. “Tomoyo, do you have your gun?”

“I always do.” (She always does; she sleeps with it beside her pillow.) “Our hotel’s coming up. I’m going to the parking lot.”

“I’ve contacted the V.I.A., and they don’t have agents in your vicinity.”

Tomoyo takes a right into the parking lot, and the car follows after her. She circles around parking spaces, and the car follows behind. The tail is obvious. There must be a reason for it. It wants to be seen. She stops, putting the car in park, and rolls out between parked cars. She squeezes underneath one, holding her breath, and holds her gun in her hands. She clicks off the safety. She hears the other car come to a halt and waits.

She can only see shoes, black combat boots. Footsteps. They’re walking to her car. Three distinct, loud gunshots erupt, and she hears air hissing (the tires) and glass breaking. She hears a door open. A fourth gunshot, and her sister’s electronic voice abruptly stops. The footsteps venture between cars, and she watches the boots walk directly beside her head. She doesn’t breathe. A note drops on the ground, folded.

She waits. An unfamiliar cellphone rings, and she thanks her luck when the shoes leave her side, disappearing from her view. She waits until she hears a car start and she grabs the note, crawling back out from beneath her hiding spot, trying to breathe again while the car speeds away.

Tomoyo grabs her Agency phone. She snaps pictures of the rental car—the tires are shot, deflated; the driver’s side window is shattered, and the electronics unit is totally destroyed. She collects the shells. She sends her sister the photographs and finally unfolds the note, written in neat, small script.

_ Please go home. It is dangerous for you here, and I don’t want to hurt you. I will keep him safe. _

She bursts into tears.

* * *

In California, everything goes to shit, and quickly. Tomoyo doesn’t leave the office for anything. She takes up residence in Kurogane’s old office, instead, and goes through his emails. It makes her realize just how much she doesn’t know about him. He’s an enigma, and by everyone’s assumption, _ she _knows him better than anyone else. But she doesn’t, all the same. She knows only as much as he lets her. She knows his mother’s dead, knows his father’s dead, knows he lives in a crammed apartment, knows he takes his coffee black, knows his favorite food is a bacon cheeseburger—“Honestly, Kurogane, you still eat like you’re in college”—and that he likes mustard. But she doesn’t know all that much, really, because she doesn’t expect the kinds of emails she finds.

Kurogane and Fai were emailing each other constantly. Kurogane emails a picture of Moko. Fai sends a documentary about the origins of modern cat breeds. Kurogane sends a thoughtful, thorough review of the documentary. Fai launches into a miniature essay on why many cats have extra toes. Kurogane replies by asking Fai how he retains all of that information, and Fai gives a bullshit answer, and Kurogane sends _ another picture of Moko. _ At least it isn’t through Kurogane’s work email. But the fact remains that he was _ much _closer to Fai than she suspected.

The email that really catches her attention is one where Fai writes:

_ Darling, you did a very kind thing for me, today, even if it was misguided. Please return the gun. You do not have the money to spend on that sort of thing. _

And she realizes, then, that Kurogane has acted out of protocol. The date of the email does not match anything recorded on the wire. He must have turned it off. How many times has Kurogane turned off his wire without anyone realizing it? He’s supposed to keep it on for any interaction between himself and Fai. He obviously didn’t do that when he _ bought Fai a gun. _Tomoyo rubs her eyes, reading the email over, and is angry that the content remains unchanged, that she didn’t misread anything.

She decides to hold a meeting with the team. Syaoran appears fifteen minutes before it starts, armed with a notepad and pen. Sakura appears five minutes before it starts and sits next to him. She tucks her hair behind her ears, revealing a new pair of diamond earrings, and Syaoran brightly remarks that, “They are almost as beautiful as your smile—that’s why I picked them.”

Xing Huo trickles in, a minute before things start, and takes a seat, sitting as rigidly as she typically does. Carla joins, two minutes after the official start of the meeting, and tries offering the team her takeout. Sakura takes a bit of it, but Syaoran and Xing Huo decline quickly. Finally, the four all look to Tomoyo, expectant.

“Good afternoon,” she begins. “It’s come to my attention that Mr. Suwa has disobeyed a lot of our orders regarding his current case. I’m here to ask you all a few questions.”

Syaoran nods earnestly. He is always trying to hard to please everyone. Sakura nods, too. Both of them have white cat hair on their clothes. Xing Huo nods, too, adding, “Let us help.”

Carla remarks, “I’m late to all of this. I don’t know how helpful I can really be.”

“You will all be helpful,” Tomoyo replies. “Look—he turned off his wire a few times. I only caught it because I snooped in his personal email. Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t do that. But he’s vanished in Venezuela, so I wanted to poke around and see if I could find anything. Surprise! I did. He bought Fai a gun. Fai didn’t accept it. His wire wasn’t on for this, but Fai emailed him about it. With that in mind, I need to know if you think Mr. Suwa has acted suspiciously over the past three months. Anything at all would help.”

“He bought the guy a _ gun_?” Carla asks.

“Yep.” Tomoyo feels impatient. “I have more emails to go through, but I have a feeling I’m going to find a lot of things he did without letting us know. Anyway. Again, anything suspicious?”

“He smiled a lot more,” Sakura says, and the others all nod along. “I know that isn’t very suspicious, but with Mr. Suwa...”

“I heard him singing in his office,” Syaoran confesses, blushing.

“Really?” Sakura’s eyes are huge, and her expression is both delighted and terrified. “What was he singing?”

“It sounded like an eighties rock ballad, but I’m not entirely sure. I—I stood outside his office for a little while and listened, honestly, because I thought I might be hallucinating,” Syaoran stammers. “Is that suspicious?”

Tomoyo stares at her team.

“Okay,” she says. “Beyond him being _ happy_, I want to know if there was anything _ actually _suspicious.”

Surprisingly, Xing Huo has valuable input. “He left for lunch two weeks ago. He never takes a whole hour for it, but he did, that time.”

“Oh?” she murmurs. “Go on.”

“He asked how he looked before he left,” Xing Huo admits. “He does not typically make the effort to speak to me, so I remembered it. I thought it seemed like a date, but I am not sure.”

Kurogane does not go on dates. Tomoyo had to trick him for two months into going to the bar with her, each time saying she “had a location she wanted him to check out for anything suspicious”. Eventually, Kurogane caught onto the trick and she stopped lying, and they went to the bar simply for the sake of each other’s company. Knowing that, she realizes, in all likelihood, that Kurogane probably left, two weeks ago, to have a lunch date with a particular man.

“He hadn’t turned on his wire until 7:30 that night,” Xing Huo adds. “It was not on for lunch. I do doubt he would take anyone out to lunch except for Flowright.”

“He’s been going behind our back,” Carla mutters, covering her mouth while she still chews her fries.

“What else?” she presses.

Carla swallows her fries.

“I’m just saying,” Carla says, “that it’s possible he disappeared on purpose.”

It’s what Tomoyo expects to hear. That’s why she brought them together for this meeting. She has a suspicion, but doesn’t want to be alone in it. Kurogane might not have been kidnapped. He might have intentionally dropped off the grid to be with the Fai Flowright. She saw the emails, the cat pictures from Kurogane, the pictures of museums from Fai (tagged with: _ How about a date, darling? _ ), the transcripts, the worried look on Kurogane’s face when Fai sent that terrible text (_Help me _), the terrified stomp around a Venezuelan hotel, the—she knows Kurogane’s in love, but she doesn’t know Kurogane, and she doesn’t know the lengths he might go, now.

The team nods with Carla, almost guiltily. Sakura looks down at her hands. Syaoran looks at Sakura, touching her shoulder. Carla stares at her fries. Xing Huo, alone, looks to Tomoyo.

“Goddammit,” Tomoyo sighs.

* * *

She decides to speak to Ichihara Yuuko about the entire affair. Logically, Miss Yuuko should have _ some _information. Tomoyo takes Sakura along for it, as Sakura is sweet enough to be disarming. Sakura is outfitted with a wire, herself, and looks out the window with a great deal of wonder on her girlish face. Tomoyo knows why Syaoran loves the girl. It’s easy to love Sakura.

Sakura turns up the radio and sings loudly. The girl is tone deaf.

They find her house, but it’s only too easy to find it. In a long string of row-homes, Miss Yuuko’s is a standalone house. Small. Painted black. A fence, flowers, and a pebbled pathway to the front door. It doesn’t fit its own scenery. It makes Tomoyo think of Xing Huo, somehow. Tomoyo parks the car and Sakura unbuckles herself.

“Sakura.”

“Tomoyo?”

“Be on guard. You understand?” Sakura nods. “Good. You don’t have to talk. Just look around, take note of things—we want this lady on drug trafficking in the future, but it has to wait for now.”

“Of course.”

“Good girl.” Tomoyo pops out of the car and Sakura follows after her, marveling at the flowers and the house while Tomoyo rings the doorbell. She waits. About a minute passes, and the door opens. Miss Yuuko does not answer, but a young man does—about Sakura’s age, but, perhaps younger—with short black hair and glasses. Tomoyo recognizes him; he is usually spotted where Miss Yuuko is. He smiles clinically. “Good afternoon, sir. I was hoping to speak to Miss Yuuko.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Oh...” Tomoyo feigns confusion. “I wasn’t aware I needed one. I was told I could just show up.”

The man studies her for a few moments, and mutters, “I will speak with Miss Yuuko. Please wait.”

He shuts the door. Sakura tugs on Tomoyo’s sleeve and says, “These are the largest snapdragons I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Sure.”

“I wonder how she does it!”

Tomoyo gives her a stern look. “Sakura, not right now.”

“Sorry.”

The door opens again, and the young man nods at them both. “Miss Yuuko has decided to see you. She instructed me to serve you drinks—is there any preference?”

“No. We’re fine,” Tomoyo says as Sakura almost asks for soda. Sakura shuts her mouth, nodding along with Tomoyo, and the young man ushers them inside. The house is small and packed with odd ornaments. A mask here. An oil lamp. A few abstract sculptures that Tomoyo doesn’t quite get. Sakura looks about with appreciative eyes, keeping close to her superior. The young man takes them to a shut door and pauses.

“Miss Yuuko has a fascination with incense. I apologize for the smoke,” he mutters, and he opens the door. The agents both squint instinctively as a great wall of smoke dashes towards them, pungent, sweet, smoky citrus. Sakura immediately coughs. The young man guides them forward, not disturbed by the smoke. The lights change. In the rest of the house, the lights are gentle yellow. In this part, the lights are blue, purple, and pink, as if Miss Yuuko has set up a miniature club.

If there was ever a drug den, this is a pretty obvious one. But the smoke is so thick that it’s hard to see beyond a foot, and the smoke unfurls, vibrant pink near the floor with blue flickering overhead. Sakura lets out a small gasp of surprise and a large dog swivels against their legs, dashing ahead of them.

“I opened a window,” the young man says apologetically. It might be more effective if he tore down a wall, Tomoyo thinks, because she has never seen this much smoke in her life without a fire. The man vanishes from their side and Tomoyo hears another window opening; a gust of fragrant smoke leaks outside, and the room clears just enough that she sees Miss Yuuko, herself.

“Watanuki,” says a smooth, deep voice. “Thank you. You may leave.”

The young man—Watanuki—bows, nods at the agents, and leaves the room. He shuts the door behind them.

Miss Yuuko perches languidly on a red, leather Recamier, a long, ebony pipe in one hand while her other hand strokes the top of a large, black dog’s head. Behind her, many sticks of incense burn on.

“There is something you want,” Miss Yuuko says plainly. She sucks on her pipe and blows out smoke circles.

“Yes, Miss Yuuko.”

Miss Yuuko scratches the black dog’s chin. “Our visitors are not polite enough to let me introduce myself. What do you think? Should I entertain them?”

Obviously, the dog doesn’t answer, but looks very attentive. Tomoyo reaches for her badge, preparing her speech, but Miss Yuuko laughs suddenly.

“There is no need, Agent Daidouji,” the woman remarks. “I know enough about you.”

Tomoyo narrows her eyes. “Well, then.”

“Indeed,” Miss Yuuko agrees, bemused. “There is something you want.”

“Two men are missing. You saw them six times over the past three months,” Tomoyo begins, and she thrusts her hand behind her; Sakura fumbles, handing the older woman the photographs. “Kurogane Suwa and Fai Flowright.”

The woman puffs on her pipe, drumming fingers on the dog’s black-furred head, and nods, exhaling visibly.

“I may know them,” Miss Yuuko says, “but there is a price for that information.”

“You want a bribe.”

“Of course not.” Miss Yuuko’s eyes drift over the women and land on Sakura. The smile expands. “Ah. Such lovely earrings. I think they would look better on me.”

Sakura’s hands go to her ears—the earrings Syaoran bought for her—and Tomoyo bats the girl’s hands back down, scowling at Miss Yuuko.

“Tomoyo,” Sakura murmurs, “I don’t mind.”

“_I _do.”

Miss Yuuko has a palm extended, waiting. Sakura removes her earrings, despite Tomoyo’s orders, and places them in Miss Yuuko’s hand. The woman folds her fingers around them, studying them, and nods to herself. She suddenly looks at the agents as if they are good friends of hers.

“I may know them,” she says, “but do come closer. I must be sure I am thinking of the correct men.”

Tomoyo shoves the pictures in Miss Yuuko’s face, and the woman makes a low purr of recognition.

“The blond—yes, I know him,” Miss Yuuko murmurs. “The black-haired fellow? I have seen him, but I haven’t the pleasure of his company. Mr. Flowright’s bodyguard of the moment, but they change so quickly.”

“How do you know Mr. Flowright?” Tomoyo asks, and Miss Yuuko smiles. “What do you mean by ‘they change so quickly’?”

“Mr. Flowright loves accessories,” Miss Yuuko chuckles. “A pretty thing to tag along. He tires of them and finds a new model. Granted, I only know as much about him as Mr. Flowright allows me to know. He is a beautiful liar—the best I have met. Charming, of course, but men like him typically are.”

Tomoyo withdraws the photographs, studying Miss Yuuko. Her eyes are half-lidded, amused. This is fun for her.

“What is your relationship to Mr. Flowright?” Tomoyo presses.

“Mr. Flowright pays me to watch his brother’s dog,” Miss Yuuko replies, nodding at the creature. “A Belgian Sheepdog, Nana.” Nana’s tail thumps at the name. “There is nothing untoward about it. He visits to pay me for this service. We chat a bit. He leaves. But I do not know much about the man. You say he is missing? Where was he last?”

Tomoyo frowns. “Doesn’t matter. I know Flowright saw you often enough that you have to have some inklings. Was there anything suspicious?”

Miss Yuuko chuckles. “He is always suspicious!”

“Obviously. Why are _ you _taking care of his brother’s dog, and not the brother himself?”

Miss Yuuko raises her brows beneath her bangs, muttering, “I have my theories, but, as you’ve gathered, nothing comes free.” She studies Sakura again, but the girl doesn’t have any other jewelry to offer. Miss Yuuko frowns. “Pity. I suppose our conversation is over...unless.”

“How do you get your snapdragons that big?” Sakura bursts, surprisingly, and both Miss Yuuko and Tomoyo stare at her. Tomoyo mouths _ the hell is wrong with you _while Miss Yuuko suddenly laughs, tapping her chin.

“Aha. I know what can be done,” the woman announces. “I need a gardener, as I will be leaving the country in a few weeks to visit my dear old aunt. Watanuki kills my plants, despite his best efforts. I will need you to water them, then. What is your name?”

“Sakura L—”

“_Dammit _, don’t—”

“Perfect. That will do.” Miss Yuuko sips on her pipe thoughtfully, and when she speaks, next, smoke sifts through her yellow teeth. “Your price is appropriate. Yes, it is awfully odd that I keep his brother’s dog, isn’t it? I have my theories.”

“Go on,” Tomoyo mutters, and she really, really hates this woman. Anyone who takes advantage of little Sakura cannot be anything good.

“The first,” Miss Yuuko says, wagging her pipe with each point she makes, “is that something is wrong with the brother. Sick? Perhaps. Dead? Perhaps. I cannot say. But Flowright cares for the thing as well as he can, though, oddly enough, does not keep Nana himself.”

Nana barks at her own name.

“I suspect his keeper is allergic,” Miss Yuuko muses.

“Whose _ keeper _?”

“Oh, Agent Daidouji,” Miss Yuuko chuckles, “you know my meaning.”

She does.

“Fine. If you had to guess where they’ve gone, where would you say?” Tomoyo asks. Miss Yuuko looks at Nana, whose tail wags, and smiles.

“Venezuela cannot be fashionable for long,” Miss Yuuko says carefully. “Nana, where is your uncle? Do you know? Ah. I see. Nana thinks her uncle is partial to Finland.”

Nana woofs, wiggling. Tomoyo blinks.

“He’s Finnish,” she realizes. She turns, grabbing Sakura by the shoulders, and repeats, “He’s _Finnish! _My God—_Finnish!_”

“Tomoyo?”

“Miss Yuuko—that will be all. I might return in the future,” Tomoyo says hurriedly. Miss Yuuko smiles. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“Bring wine, next time,” Miss Yuuko returns, winking.

“Any wine you’d like,” she promises, and she pushes Sakura out of the room, herding her out of the house while the girl looks flustered and puzzled, and Tomoyo thinks she has found exactly what she needed.

“I’m confused, Tomoyo,” Sakura frets. “What is it?”

Tomoyo opens a door for the girl, so Sakura takes a seat. Tomoyo plants herself in the driver’s seat and starts the car, mind zooming. Finnish. Fai Flowright is not an American. She has to get clearances for Finnish records, but Kendappa will take care of it. There will be records. There will be answers. They will find Kurogane.

“This is progress, Sakura,” Tomoyo announces, “and Kurogane owes me big time.”

* * *

A week passes. Tomoyo has adopted Kurogane’s office as her own, eating the cake Sakura made for him (it was frozen while they went to Venezuela, and she thaws it out as a treat for herself). It’s a pleasant day, and Kurogane doesn’t want her in his office, but he has no choice. He jots down notes from his computer while a black coffee sits on his desk, steaming.

“We’ve found a huge break in the case, I’ll have you know,” she announces.

Kurogane glances up from his work just barely, but turns his head. He asks, “Did you?”

“Yep! A lot of information on a guy named Fay Fluorite. I know what you’re thinking, but the first and last name is spelled differently, which is why I hadn’t picked it up until I got a little creative. Also, having Finnish record access tends to help. He’s Finnish. The birth record for the U.S. is a bunch of bull, but it looked like bull from the start.”

Kurogane sighs and stops writing, putting down his pen, and rights his posture. He looks at her. “Listening.”

“Born the same day as our Fai, but _ he _ has a paper trail—born in Finland, came here to study at Berkeley, and has been back and forth between the U.S. and Finland until one year ago. He has a doctorate in chemistry and worked for Piffle—you know, the big drug manufacturer. The best part? He was tried for _ murder _about a year ago.”

Kurogane takes a sip of his coffee and mumbles, “Something’s wrong with you when _ murder _is ‘the best part’ of anything.”

“Aw, shut up—he wasn’t guilty, in the end, but they lost the body and everything in the trial basically went wrong. He didn’t go back to Finland after that. _ His _paper trail completely stops half a year ago.”

That was when Kurogane noticed the man in the first place, and he had started tailing Fai a month after that.

“Oh—how could I forget? The _ really _ good part,” Tomoyo says, stabbing a chunk of cake on a plastic fork. “The victim of that murder is _ Yuui Fluorite. _ You following? That’s his _ twin brother. _”

Kurogane spits out his coffee.

“I know, I know,” Tomoyo finishes, jamming cake in her mouth. “I should get a raise.”

Kurogane is not in the office. She is sitting in his office, alone, leaving a message on his personal cellphone because she thinks he needs to be updated. Maybe he can access his phone. Maybe this information could save his life. Maybe he didn’t run off on his own and he’s waiting for extraction, but—it’s late. It’s almost 4 in the morning. Sakura is off watching Moko and Tomoyo’s in the office, unwilling to go home while her failure—Kurogane’s absence—weaves its way into every space. She swallows cake.

“I miss you,” she says, and she hangs up.

* * *

In the following week, Sakura calls Tomoyo. Tomoyo picks her head off Kurogane’s desk and has to peel off a paper that stuck to her forehead. She hadn’t realized she fell asleep in the first place, so she squints, bleary-eyed, as Sakura cries, “The cat! The cat!”

“What about the cat?” Tomoyo grunts.

“I can’t,” Sakura weeps. “I can’t. Syaoran? Syaoran, you tell her—I can’t.”

“Goddammit,” Tomoyo mutters to herself, rubbing her eyes. The phone is passed off, and Syaoran clears his throat. “Alright, Mr. Li. What happened to the cat? Moko dead or something?”

Moko is sixteen, so it wouldn’t be outlandish. Kurogane will not be pleased.

“Tomoyo, this is going to sound very strange,” Syaoran says nervously, “and I apologize for calling so early, but someone broke into Mr. Suwa’s house and stole Moko.”

Tomoyo wakes up in an instant.

“Let me get this right,” Tomoyo says, squinting at the clock on the wall. 6:07 AM. Too early for this. “Someone broke into his apartment and stole the cat. While you were there. Both of you.”

“Well—um—yes. I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head.”

“And you didn’t stop this person.”

“No—well, we don’t have guns, and the person had a large shotgun and a mask on. We let them take what they wanted. They left about ten minutes ago.”

“...Mr. Li, they came in to steal his _ cat _?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Kurogane has—I don’t know—_ valuables. _ They didn’t take anything else?” she asks. Syaoran stumbles on his words, asking Sakura. In the background, Tomoyo hears Sakura sobbing _ Moko, Moko _like she’s lost a lover. “Cash? I mean, they didn’t even take cash from both of you?”

“No.” Syaoran pauses. “Sakura is a bit upset. We will be in at 9, I assure you, but we just wanted you to know what happened. If you don’t mind, I’m going to go, now, Tomoyo.”

“When you come in, we’ll file a report with local police.” He agrees, and she hangs up. She turns up the photograph Kurogane has on his desk and touches his glass-covered, child-face with her index finger. Someone’s stolen Moko, just as someone’s stolen Kurogane. She frowns at his smiling, young face.

“Tomoyo,” says a voice at the door, and Tomoyo jumps, surprised. She looks up to see Xing Huo clutching the doorway. “Why aren’t you sleeping at home?”

“I need to be here, in case anything happens.”

Xing Huo almost frowns, or, at least, delivers her closest approximation of a frown: a downward twitch at the corners of her mouth. Tomoyo imagines the scene from Xing Huo’s eyes, and realizes she does not look well in it.

“Why are you in so early?” Tomoyo follows up, hoping to shift the direction of conversation.

“I like working in the quiet,” Xing Huo admits, after thinking for a little while. She nods toward a nearby window. “Besides, I like seeing the sunrise from my desk. You can see everything come alive from up here.”

Tomoyo hesitates. “How long have you been coming in this early?”

“Enough to know that you haven’t slept at home since Venezuela,” Xing Huo says.

Tomoyo swallows. It’s worse than she thought.

“Don’t tell the others.”

“I understand.” Xing Huo nods seriously. “I will start the coffee. Rest a little longer.”

“You’re an angel.”

Xing Huo leaves, and Tomoyo puts her head back down on the desk, shutting her eyes.

* * *

The agents leave, and Miss Yuuko hears a voice from her private room behind the beaded curtains. She sets her pipe on the Recamier and walks, parting the beads. A man in his thirties with mousy brown hair looks at her, red-eyed. He has ratty clothes, an old t- shirt so faded that the print doesn’t show, boxers, and high socks. Nana jumps in, butting past Miss Yuuko, and cries at the man. He regards the dog with a slow gaze.

“Lempi,” he greets Nana, and Nana jumps clumsily. The man laughs, “Ah, ah, ah— käyttäydy!”, and Nana settles.

“They’re gone,” Miss Yuuko says. She smiles at him, fixing her newly-acquired earrings in. “I liked the short one. Lovely woman. Fiery. She will bring wine, next time. I believe it’s a date. What do you think?”

“Nana is a good dog,” the man replies sluggishly. He has a lazy smile. Nana licks his hands, and her tail knocks a glass pipe off the table. He fumbles to pick it up, but his hands are too slow. Miss Yuuko does the cleaning, herself, and lights the bowl. Finished, she sets it on the table, blowing smoke with a soft cough.

“A nice young woman named Sakura will water the snapdragons, but she shouldn’t come inside,” Miss Yuuko tells him. “You will be unbothered.”

“Nothing ever bothers me,” he replies.

“Still, you cannot stay forever,” she reminds him.

“I’m a ghost, Miss Yuuko. I’ll just haunt your house.” He laughs at his own joke and she touches his hair, running long fingernails through it. He gives her a placid, satiated smile. “Boo.”

“So scary,” she hums.

“Aren’t I?”

“Oh, you poor creature,” she murmurs, and she snaps her fingers, drawing Nana’s watchful brown eyes. “Your request is hitting a few snags, I’m afraid. He’s run off. It’s only a matter of time until they catch up.”

“I have all the time in the world,” he says lightly, and he pats Nana on the rump. Miss Yuuko shakes her head.

“I’m afraid,” she replies, “that is not so.”

“Nana is a good dog, isn’t she?” is all he asks, and he smiles at her, offering nothing else. She leaves him behind her, retiring to her favorite seat in the house while Watanuki shuts her windows, angrily ranting to himself about ‘you’ve lost your damn mind’ and ‘agents in the den’ and she shuts her eyes. In another room, a man sings songs to a dog in another language, and it is all a sort of peace, but it will not last.


	3. The King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane tries to escape an unfortunate situation. (TW: violence, gaslighting)

“No, really—what do you  _ want _ ?” Kurogane presses. He doesn’t want it to be this way. He wants Fai to have reached out to him for a less vile reason, for the same reasons Kurogane had when he rushed here in the first place. Fai tilts his head to the left and to the right, as if in deep thought.

“Hmm!” Fai squints. “I want a private jet and a genuine Redon piece, but I doubt either thing will happen. Mr. Ashura is a bit stingy.”

Laughable. Mr. Ashura is far from stingy with Fai.

“Why are you doing this?”

Fai raises his eyebrows. “Have I hurt your feelings, darling?”

Kurogane glares, but does not reply.

“I really am so sorry,” Fai says lightly. “I’ve grown fond of you, of course, but my fondness has other reasons. I don’t typically go for younger men.”

Kurogane’s eyes narrow. “What happened to your other bodyguard, Fai?”

“Oh. Of course.” Fai smiles. “I shot him between the eyes.”

“Why?”

“He was uncooperative,” Fai replies. “Do be good for me. I should hate to shoot you, too, after we’ve shared such swell times together. Do not think I won’t, Kurogane, because I  _ will  _ do it.”

Kurogane swallows.

“He was a nice fellow, too. Very agreeable. He did headstands if I asked him to,” Fai remarks thoughtfully.

“Stop it,” Kurogane snaps. “You’ve lied to me.”

“Naturally. Haven’t you met me?”

“Fuck you,” Kurogane grunts, and Fai hops off the bed, coming closer to Kurogane. The icepack lies on the sheets, leaking a puddle. Fai tosses his cigarette aside, grinding it with the toe of his shoe, and wiggles the gun to the side of Kurogane’s head. Kurogane knows what to do, even if he doesn’t want to do it, and he grabs the nose of it, jolting it away from him and shoving Fai down as the man fires. The bullet whizzes through an open window. He snatches the gun from Fai’s hand, straddling him, aiming at Fai’s forehead. Beneath him, Fai shuts his eyes.

But he cannot do it. He cannot shoot.

Fai’s eyes open.

“What do you want?” Kurogane asks, and his voice is rougher than he wants it to be, nervous, frightened. Fai’s eyes flicker over Kurogane’s face, blue and cold and beautiful.

“Freedom,” Fai begins.

* * *

Kurogane ends up on a flight, sitting in first-class seating for the first time in his life. Fai downs champagne, sitting beside Kurogane and behind Mr. Ashura; he reaches around the seat to touch the King’s arm, occasionally, and the men slip each other notes. Kurogane glances at them, but he doesn’t know the language. Fai gives Kurogane a bemused look, murmuring, “Some subtlety goes a long way, you realize,” and he shakes his blond head. It’s odd to be to Fai’s right while the King and his lover pass notes like schoolchildren. Mr. Ashura has not spoken a word to him since the hotel incident. Fai speaks for him, instead.

“The King would like to have dinner with you soon,” Fai says.

Kurogane looks at the back of Mr. Ashura’s head, but the man doesn’t acknowledge him. He finally nods, and Fai writes another note, passing it on. Kurogane senses he doesn’t have much of a choice, now.

He could have shot Fai in the head and run, but he didn’t do that. He was too softhearted, brimming with good memories with the man. So in a strange, roundabout way, Kurogane has fled the country almost willingly.

Still, he thinks of himself as a hostage.

Kurogane manages to send Tomoyo a partial text, trying to type  _ we were wrong _ . Fai takes the phone from him just as Kurogane hits ‘send’ and heaves it out the hotel window, watching it shatter on pavement. Another lifeline, lost. Fai smiles at him, shaking a scolding finger, and says, “There will be no more of that, I’m afraid.” And all Kurogane can do is pray that Tomoyo doesn’t try to save him.

She does try, of course. Fai gets a call and chatters in Spanish before hanging up and remarking, “As it turns out, Venezuela is simply too much for your friend. She will be going home.”

“What have you done?” Kurogane demands.

“Nothing at all,” Fai hums, and it’s a lie, and  _ they were wrong. _

They were wrong about many things. They were wrong to think Fai was merely a lover, to think Fai’s hands were clean while the King’s weren’t, to think... Well, Kurogane feels the most wrong, because he thought there was something between them, a genuine thing, a tender link, when there was nothing of the sort.

Fai has used him, and Fai continues to use him.

They leave the plane and Kurogane steps onto strange soil. Philadelphia. A limousine driver picks them up and Mr. Ashura is tight-lipped, holding one hand on Fai’s knee while Fai drunkenly chatters about the cows he sees outside.

“Did you know that cows don’t have four stomachs?” Fai asks. “They  _ do _ , however, have four digestive compartments. It is a commonly held yet false belief that this means they have four stomachs.”

Kurogane finds it endearing, still, and it hurts his heart. Before, he would have said, “You’re full of shit,” and Fai would have playfully admonished him. That time is gone. He looks away from Fai. The windows are tinted and no one can see inside, but he peers outside as pastures pass with cows walking about. Outside of Philadelphia, it seems, there is no shortage of farmland and livestock. It is not at all like his home.

Mr. Ashura smiles oddly at Fai. “Ah. I did not know that.”

“I thought I would be a farmer when I was a boy,” Fai adds brightly. “It did not turn out that way, but I learned a great deal.”

Kurogane cares for him. He doesn’t want to, but it’s too late, now, and he wonders just how badly he’s fucked up this time.

In California, the team begins suspecting that this was not a kidnapping at all.

* * *

Kurogane’s father dies when he’s six. Burglary gone wrong. Kurogane goes by his given name—Youou, named after his father—but adopts his middle name from then on. The incident is always fresh in mind: his father with his hands flying up in front of his head as a bullet strikes his face. Skull fragments, bits of brain. Kurogane crouching, terrified, inside the kitchen cabinet because he was so small, and its door couldn’t completely shut, so he saw it. His father, dead, because the wrong Suwas’ home was chosen. There was another family—the wealthy Suwas— and it was not theirs. His father, dead.

Kurogane clings to his mother for dear life and throws tantrums whenever she leaves until he’s ten. She’s a single mother, now, and works often. She picks up illnesses out of stress, always convinced of cancer. Kurogane thinks his mother is always right and grows up thinking his mother is constantly on the brink of death, forever furious that death has the nerve to take her, too. Around thirteen, he realizes she’s a hypochondriac, and he stops listening to her complaints, but the fury remains. At school, children tease him just so he snaps, which they find hilarious (he gets suspended, which only stresses his mother out more). He eventually goes to college on a scholarship for football because he likes tackling people—an excuse for violence. He gets concussions, but they never cure him.

He tries to make friends, but it doesn’t work out that well. He’s bossy and nervous and finicky, full of a childish rage and shame that while his father died, he hid under a sink like a coward. He has average grades—nothing spectacular—but gets by, graduates, and picks up an internship for government work. He has a solid work ethic, somehow, even if he gets in his own way. He picks up a job as an instructor for self-defense classes and fills his time to the brim. When he isn’t sorting papers for the government, he’s teaching women how to effectively break an attacker’s arm.

He dates one of his students for a few months, but his night terrors are too much for her, and she runs out of his apartment when he tries shoving her in a cabinet in his sleep. This happens a few times, actually, with different women. When he actually  _ does  _ date a man, he attempts to do the same while he sleeps, but his partner punches him in the face and wakes him up. Kurogane realizes something is deeply wrong with him and he preemptively ends that relationship, for once, instead of being left, himself. As much as he hurts, he doesn’t want it to spread.

He doesn’t have many friends—not genuine ones. At work, he is professional. He doesn’t talk about himself. He continues teaching classes in the evenings. He joins his fellow instructors, occasionally, to go fishing or some other stereotypical manly activity, but he never really enjoys himself. He visits his mother every weekend and she tells him there is a tumor in her head, but she hasn’t seen a doctor, so he thinks she’s full of shit. Other than that, his life is rather without consequence. The people in his life could be substituted for complete strangers and it would not look different.

He moves up ranks and eventually interviews with Tomoyo Daidouji. He’s excited to see another Japanese name. He dresses in his best clothes and shakes her hand, surprised that her handshake is even firmer than his. For about five seconds, they’re squeezing the life out of each other’s hands, and Tomoyo starts laughing. She interviews him. He has a psych evaluation. With a lot of lies, he passes, and joins her team. He stops instructing self-defense classes and moves into the city. He attacks a few people—suspects. It isn’t good. His upstairs neighbor tries to make him take her out, somewhere, but he never does it.

He visits his mother monthly and she really does have cancer, now, and he faces the grim reality of two dead parents and he is helpless against it. To fight it, he alphabetizes his DVDs, constantly polishes his phone, and obsessively dusts. He can control dirt, but it always comes back. His hands crack from using too much hand sanitizer and he realizes he’s losing his mind.

Tomoyo tries to be his friend, but he is too full of hurt all the time. His father, dead, skull, brain bits, cabinet, wrong Suwas. Night terrors, sleepwalking. Waking up curled up in his shower, clenching a shampoo bottle in his fist like a knife. He agrees to therapy. He gets medicated. He stops sleepwalking and his nightmares become unusually creative and odd. He dreams his father is a beast slain by a burglar in a black and white striped shirt and a beret. It’s stupid.

His mother dies, and he stops taking the medication because he doesn’t care—death wins, stealing another from his hands. He can’t control anything in his life. Everything gets dirty again and he doesn’t try to clean, knowing the dirt will come back. Sleepwalking resumes; he wakes up in his own car, huddled in the backseat with his gun held like a doll to his breast.

He is lonely as hell. He thinks, actually, Hell would have the benefit of company. He visits group therapy, but he’s angry with all the crying widows and nervous star-students and he leaves after five minutes. He puts his license on the table, his Agency card, his birth certificate, his gun license—he cleans his gun, and Tomoyo walks into his house, an uninvited light. She takes one look at him and snatches his gun. He resumes therapy with a new doctor and cries on a chair when his therapist asks him to stop blaming himself for his parents’ deaths. He can’t.

He needs to occupy himself. Tomoyo points to Celes Oil, and Kurogane follows her hand. He watches press conferences of Mr. Ashura and notices a very attractive man with blond hair at his table, smiling without feeling, pink-faced and amicable to the media. Kurogane takes a wild leap, thinking something must be there, and haunts Celes Oil’s website. Fai D. Flowright, PR Consultant. The man has a bogus website and the phone number listed there doesn’t work. Kurogane takes a stab, follows him.

“He’s the guy’s  _ lover _ ,” Kurogane says.

Tomoyo replies, “Okay. Prove it.”

He does.

The man flirts with him—openly. Calls him ‘darling’. Kurogane has never been called that before, doesn’t know what to do with that, but it stirs something up, and where he used to dream of his father’s murder and wake up anywhere but his bed, he dreams of blond hair and fake paintings and he needs to protect this man, because he has never really been happy before, not since his father died. He shouldn’t trust the feeling, but he does. It feels good.

In Venezuela, he wishes he never followed Fai at all.

* * *

Mr. Ashura has a “small estate” (it is not  _ small _ , no matter how Fai insists) in rural Pennsylvania. Again, there are no neighbors. The grass is cut immaculately and well-tended. A giant garden is planted before the mansion, encircling a fountain with copper-green statues standing in it (a dragon, a serpent, and a naked man with a sword). Kurogane feels particularly poor when the limousine pulls into the long driveway. It is a house upon a hill.

Fai finds flowers in his suite, there—of course he has a suite, there, as well—and smiles sadly at them. Roses, again, and Fai has said that he receives too many roses. Still, he touches the petals and plucks one off, tossing it lightly into the air. Fai watches it land on the marble countertop and Kurogane looks on, his heart heavy. Fai frowns at the vase.

“Roses again,” Fai says. “What did I tell you, Kurogane? Roses.”

Kurogane says nothing. He remembers the sort of flowers Fai wants because of course he does.

“Are you happy, here?” Fai wonders.

“That a joke?” Kurogane asks.

“You are still upset with me,” Fai realizes. He plucks a rose from its glass vase and offers it to the agent, but Kurogane refuses to take it. Fai shakes his head. “I have taken you on a much-needed vacation.”

“This,” Kurogane returns, “is  _ not  _ a vacation.”

Even so, Fai is the one who dresses Kurogane up, claiming the man must make a better impression on the King. Mr. Ashura doesn’t know what Kurogane is—a spy—but knows the man was not supposed to be in Venezuela, so he apparently doesn’t think highly of Kurogane. Fai admires Kurogane in the grey suit he bought him a week into the ‘job’, standing back and whistling approvingly. Kurogane shoots him a stern glare.

“My bodyguard is so handsome,” Fai sighs.

“Shut your mouth.”

“And touchy—so very touchy.”

Fai approaches and cups Kurogane’s face, and Kurogane’s heart trips, and he hates himself for it. Kurogane peels Fai’s hand off his cheek.

“What can I do to make you happy?” Fai asks.

“Let me go.”

“Hmm. I don’t want to do that.”

Kurogane bristles at that.

“You really do look nice,” Fai reminds him.

“I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Remember to mind your manners. But do not grovel. The King likes a man who respects himself.”

“I never grovel.”

“Darling,” Fai chides, “I’m trying to help you.”

Kurogane gives Fai a hard look and says, “Stop calling me ‘darling’.”

Fai’s smile tightens, constrained, and he sends Kurogane off to dine with the King, alone.

* * *

Kurogane finds himself seated at the far end of a long, long table while the King sits at its head, as if Kurogane has a cold and Mr. Ashura would not care to catch it. It is a stark, cold room —not at all what a dining room should be, white walls and black sculptures, black curtains, and stone floors (he doesn’t know what kind of stone, as such things never interested Kurogane). It reminds Kurogane of the dead of winter, where withered, black trees poke their fingers from unforgiving snow.

Mr. Ashura has servants flitting about in black and white uniforms—everything matching, everything right. Their outfits complement the black and white marbled tabletop. The women wear red earrings, echoing the satin napkin Kurogane unfolds on his lap. A chandelier adds the only spark of color to the room, hanging in stacked cylinders of stained glass. They depict a rose blooming and withering.

“Mr. Suwa,” Mr. Ashura says, and Kurogane is afraid. Mr. Ashura’s smile is entirely unreadable. “Pardon the appearance. The property is a new purchase.”

There is nothing for Kurogane to pardon.

“I believe,” Mr. Ashura continues, “that you like bacon cheeseburgers.”

_ That  _ is the sentence Kurogane doesn’t expect. At all. He expects  _ you’re too close to Mr. Flowright  _ or  _ tell me what information you’ve gathered before I bury you in the Amish countryside  _ or  _ we were going to dump you in a river, but do you have a preference?  _ His favorite food doesn’t make that list. He realizes he’s staring because from the head of the table, the King smiles, amused.

Kurogane is going to figure out what the hell is going on. He’s going to give this man—this man who makes Fai a blond, who effectively  _ dresses  _ Fai, who’s driven Kurogane into this awful situation—a piece of his mind.

“Uh,” is what he comes up with.

“Fai tells me you do not care for salads,” Mr. Ashura adds. Kurogane slowly nods. “A drink, Mr. Suwa?”

Kurogane recalls Fai’s instructions— _ mind your manners, but do not grovel— _ and says, “Something strong.”

The King turns, saying something in another language. A servant approaches, listening intently, and replies in another language, making graceful hand gestures. Kurogane imagines he has entered another world altogether, because Mr. Ashura’s servants bring him a bacon cheeseburger and a very stiff cocktail.

“It has come to my attention,” the King announces, “that you are not merely a bodyguard.”

The hair on the back of his neck rises. Kurogane does not nod or shake his head, unsure of what Mr. Ashura knows. It is entirely possible that Fai told him the truth—and lied to Kurogane. Kurogane cannot trust the blond anymore. He grabs his glass and looks at the stuff: dark gold, opaque, but is afraid to consume anything the King gives him. Mr. Ashura has a knowing smile.

“Mr. Suwa, I am not a murderer,” the King says patiently (Kurogane doesn’t buy that at all). “I am not a jealous man, either. Fai has chosen you, and I accept that. I only want to tell you my rules. I doubt poisoning you would aid me in that way.”

Oh. Mr. Ashura does not know he’s a spy, after all—just that Fai has ‘chosen’ him. Kurogane takes a sip of his drink—a tiny one—and can barely swallow the stuff. His eyes burn. His tongue goes numb. Is that  _ absinthe _ ? This is the worst cocktail Kurogane has ever had. Mr. Ashura chuckles. His own servants do not bring  _ him  _ a bacon cheeseburger, but some sort of fish Kurogane can’t recognize upon a delicate bed of rice. He manages to swallow, but he can’t feel his own mouth.

“The hell is  _ that _ ?” Kurogane manages. As soon as he says it, he realizes he is not ‘minding his manners’ at all, but Mr. Ashura only looks entertained.

“It is my daughter’s favorite,” he says. “I am not personally convinced of her taste buds.”

Chii. Kurogane grimaces down another sip.

“In any case, Mr. Suwa, it appears to me that you and I must interact as a necessity. Fai might pay you for your protection, but you are not naïve enough to think that is with his own money,” Mr. Ashura remarks, and there is something unpleasant in his voice, though he begins neatly gathering fish on his fork. The burger smells very, very, very good, but Kurogane doubts he will be able to taste it.  _ Definitely  _ absinthe. “In effect, I am your employer. I expect certain things from my employees.”

Kurogane takes another difficult sip.

“The first matter of concern is your appearance.”

Kurogane swallows down, wincing, watery-eyed. His appearance. “What about it?”

Mr. Ashura smiles. “I will provide you with suitable items to wear. Your wardrobe is not pleasing. I do not like visual disruptions, and you are, unfortunately, visually disruptive. I appreciate beautiful things. I do not tolerate what is not.”

From the sounds of it, the King is  _ really  _ not planning to kill him. He’s planning to dress him up, if anything, just as he dresses up Fai. Kurogane reaches for the burger.

“Fine.”

“There will be more,” Mr. Ashura murmurs, looking at the stained-glass chandelier, “but not now. Let us eat.”

They do.

* * *

His face never makes the news, and it wouldn’t. He isn’t a civilian. The situation around his disappearance is not meant to be public knowledge, so no one in Pennsylvania knows his face, knows he’s missing, knows he needs help. He really does need help.

In his first week, he attempts escape over twenty times. Each time, Fai thwarts him. Fai sits in the driver’s seat of the car Kurogane attempts stealing and points a gun in his face. Fai dangles a key to a locked door outside while Kurogane barrels into it, desperate. After the first week, Kurogane realizes he’s being drugged—in the late afternoon, he feels unusually drowsy, and Fai is the one who leads him back to his bed. He sleepwalks, still, but he can’t remember a single dream. His first thought, every morning, is what his escape plan of the day is.

It becomes a running joke with Fai, but it does not make either man laugh.

Kurogane tries to call 9-1-1 on a house phone, there, but, as it turns out, he needs a key code to make  _ any  _ call. He digs around to find one, trying to look nonchalant. Servants ask if he’s lost something. He says he hasn’t and walks off, waiting until the workers are far from the little phone. He tries again. The servants come back.

He feels like someone is watching him, no matter where he is in the house. Even  _ outside  _ the house.

He tries setting fire to the kitchen, thinking if the fire department comes, he might have an out. It fails. Mr. Ashura, who has left to visit his fields in Saudi Arabia, calls the house. Fai hands the phone to Kurogane with a stoic face, and Kurogane braces himself for an upcoming execution.

“I will have doctors visit the house,” is what the King tells him gravely. “Fai tells me you have not been yourself, lately, and I know excellent doctors to control your paranoia. Doctor Tsukihiro will see you tomorrow at one in the afternoon. Good day, Mr. Suwa.”

It is not an execution at all. Fai has convinced the King that Kurogane’s mentally ill. He is, but he’s acting as sanely as possible in an insane situation. Kurogane tells Fai off, but he passes out around 8 PM and wakes up in the bathroom to Fai standing there, puzzled, holding one edge of a shower curtain in his hand. It’s a caustic reminder. Kurogane storms out and dresses himself, not speaking a word to Fai that morning at all.

He meets Doctor Tsukihiro.

The doctor is an obviously ignorant fellow, but he means well. He decides he should conduct psychological tests to determine what to do with him. Kurogane grabs the man’s hands and whispers, urgently, “You don’t understand. I’ve been kidnapped. You need to call the police.”

Doctor Tsukihiro looks at him with pity. Kurogane hates it. The doctor visits two more times in the week and Kurogane  _ almost  _ convinces him into handing over his cellphone. He starts dialing Tomoyo’s number when the doctor abruptly changes his mind, snatching it back.

“You aren’t well, right now, Mr. Suwa,” the man says quickly. “Our hour is ending, now, so I must be going.”

Doctor Tsukihiro leaves in a rush, and the hour is not even finished. Kurogane asks about it, but Fai only asks, “How was your lady friend, Kurogane?”, and Kurogane understands why.

“You can’t do this to me,” Kurogane hisses.

“I am not doing anything to you at all.” Fai smiles. “I only want your happiness.”

It’s a dirty, rotten lie.

Kurogane says, “I’m not sick.”

“You’re very, very sick.”

Outside, in the yard, Kurogane hears a gunshot. He rushes to the window and sees Doctor Tsukihiro lying dead beside a car, and a man—a uniform, one of the King’s men—tucking a gun back into its holster. Dead. He’s dead because he let Kurogane hold a phone for barely three seconds. Skull and brain bits. Shot in the head like his own father. Skull. Brain bits. Skull. Brain bits. Skull. Brain bits. Cupboard. Coward.

He can’t move. Fai closes the curtains with a knowing smile, murmuring, “I did tell them to wait, but they can be overzealous.”

Doctor Tsukihiro handing Kurogane a phone. His father with his hands up. Hiding in the cupboard. Both dead. Both dead because of him. He can’t breathe. He grabs onto the closest thing, but he slips, and his knees buckle. Dead doctor. Dead father. Dead mother. Skull and brain bits, and he was such a coward, and the doctor only handed him that phone for a moment.

“Why?” Kurogane croaks.

Fai pets Kurogane’s hair tenderly.

“He misbehaved,” Fai replies.

* * *

In the second week, Kurogane wakes up to a cat walking on his face. He is staying in a guest room in Fai’s suite, but when he feels the cat, he nearly forgets it, briefly imagining he is back at home, and everything has been a bad dream. He grumbles, “ _ No _ , Moko,” and she meows.

It takes him about twenty seconds to realize that Moko has somehow made it out of California and traveled across the country.

He springs out of bed and Moko chases after him, her puffy, white tail straight in the air. Kurogane grabs a robe for decency and wraps it around him before he bursts into Fai’s bedroom. Moko sits, inconveniently, on his feet. Fai is perfectly awake and on the phone, speaking Spanish. He pauses, holding his hand over the phone, and smiles at Kurogane.

“You’ve found my present,” Fai says, delighted.

“You stole my fucking  _ cat! _ ” Kurogane exclaims.

“Lo siento,” Fai murmurs to the person on the phone, and he hangs up, sitting cross-legged atop his bed. He starts putting out a cigarette in an ashtray beside his bed, already full of butts. “Do you not like her? Should I take her back?”

“Sakura was  _ watching  _ her!”

“As was a young man,” Fai replies brightly, and Kurogane is suddenly even more furious than before: Sakura brought  _ Mr. Li  _ when Kurogane plainly said he was not invited. “I did not take her, myself, of course. I have business to attend to.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Apparently not,” Fai decides. “I brought you your cat so you would feel more comfortable. I thought you would be happier.”

“You kidnapped me, Fai. How happy am I supposed to be?”

“Kurogane,” Fai chides, “I did not kidnap you.”

“Just tell the truth for  _ once _ .”

“Nonsense. I brought you your cat. The children in your apartment were not pleased, but smart enough to do nothing about it,” Fai murmurs. He looks at Kurogane’s feet, smiling at Moko. “In hindsight, she is a very ugly cat, isn’t she?”

Moko is a hideous cat. Her mug is totally flat and she looks constantly irate. Kurogane’s mother always went on about how beautiful little Moko was, and Kurogane decided against asking her to have her eyes checked, knowing his mother would waste hours on the Internet to prove she had a horrible eye disease.

“Yeah,” Kurogane admits.

“You took very flattering photographs, which was kind of you.” Fai pauses, perhaps considering something. “I left her litter box in the bathroom, just as you had it in your own apartment.”

“You’ve never been to my house.”

Fai smiles lightly. “I have my own people, Kurogane, and they have been to your house many times. Your night terrors frightened them, naturally.”

Fai obviously knows he is not supposed to know that, and Kurogane makes no comment. He glowers at the blond and points at him, snapping, “Moko needs kibbles with the canned stuff.  _ And  _ no more breaking into my house to get my shit.”

“My bodyguard is still upset with me,” Fai murmurs, like it’s an anomaly.

“Yeah. He is.”

Kurogane leaves him behind and spends the next three hours tearing apart the guest room, looking for other things that Fai might have taken from the apartment, but there is nothing. He has three new suits he doesn’t need because the King “needs” Kurogane’s suits to match Fai’s (and, by extension, his own), dress shoes (creaky leather), button-up shirts (some have “loud” prints Kurogane hates), and twelve ties that are all variations of red. Uniforms.

He pulls a chair by his window and draws away thick curtains, staring into the fountain. The statues chase each other—the man with the sword chases the serpent who chases the dragon who chases the man with the sword, again. They never catch their prey. It is only 9 in the morning, and Kurogane is already thinking of Tomoyo. She comes to mind too often, now, like a savior that doesn’t take his outstretched hands.

He prays for extraction, but no one comes for him.

* * *

The next three doctors end up dead in the King’s driveway because they believed him and either handed over their phones (never long enough for him to make a call) or asked Kurogane what was happening to him in the house. Kurogane blurts out everything in desperate whispers, asking that if they won’t let him call, that they will call the police after they leave. He tries to be very quiet, certain that someone is listening—someone is always listening.

Three corpses and Kurogane eventually has a meltdown, hiding in the first closet he finds. He holds his knees and tucks himself behind the coats. Everything hurts. Nothing is good. After a few hours, a servant opens the closet and she gasps to see him, startled. She brings Fai over when Kurogane says nothing to her, still too paralyzed to speak, and Fai drags him out with a strange look on his face.

Fai is a snake. Kurogane hates himself for having trusted him at all.

Fai is the one who brings Kurogane back to his room and makes him tea (Kurogane doesn’t dare touch it), who turns on the television and puts on a soap opera, idly translating the Spanish on it until Kurogane feels angry (good, he feels something other than  _ powerless _ ) and orders him to go. Fai obliges without saying goodbye, though he does pause at the door for a moment, hesitating on saying something. But he doesn’t say it.

Kurogane blares the soap opera without understanding a word spoken, save for ‘hola’ and ‘me llamo’. Kurogane and Moko glare at each other, both aliens in an unfriendly country.

The fourth doctor conducts psychological tests, but she is not foolish enough to give him her phone. He still asks, but he is partly glad she refuses. He doesn’t want to see another person shot because of him. Doctor Kinomoto is a kind woman, at least, with lovely, wavy black hair and a maternal smile.

She diagnoses him with PTSD (he knows that), PPD (Paranoid Personality Disorder— that’s a new one for him, because it’s wrong), and depression. She suggests medications and herbal supplements. Kurogane doesn’t want anything. He’s already being drugged, here.

He does an experiment and stops drinking any water served to him. There is no difference —it isn’t in the water. He stops drinking coffee—all this does is give him a headache and make him crankier than usual. He stops drinking soda—and he stops feeling drowsy. Success. A small victory. He pretends to sleep, and when it’s late, he goes through the house, checking around corners. He takes a knife from the kitchen when he hears the sharp click of a gun.

“Put it down.”

“Why?”

“You are not allowed to murder anyone.”

“I’m not a murderer—I’m not you,” Kurogane retorts. “You’re up awful late, aren’t you?”

“I worry about you so much that I can’t sleep.”

“Bullshit.”

He faces the man, keeping the knife in his hands. Fai smiles, bemused, and says, “And you wonder why I haven’t given you back the gun, Kurogane...”

“You were drugging me.”

“It stops you from screaming at night.”

“I don’t scream at night,” Kurogane argues, but Fai shakes his head, glancing up at the ceiling. In that moment, Kurogane springs forward and Fai fires a blank into his arm. It doesn’t pierce the skin, but it hurts, and he drops the knife, grabbing his arm and cursing. Fai plucks the knife from the floor and slides it back into its slot. “Fucking  _ shot  _ me!”

Fai grabs him by the arm, hard, pressing right on the sore spot—intentionally or not, Kurogane can’t tell. Kurogane strikes the man out of instinct, and Fai does not so much as shout. He only stares at Kurogane with his mouth twitching.

“Get better, please,” Fai says.

“There’s nothing  _ wrong  _ with me!”

Fai smiles painfully.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please.”

* * *

He wakes up because, evidently, he’s trying to climb out his own window in his sleep. Fai yanks him back by the ankle and Kurogane shoves him away, coming back to the waking world. Fai marvels at the man, and Kurogane hates his watchful eyes.

“Kurogane,” Fai murmurs, “should I have the windows bolted?”

“Mind your fucking business.” He’s shaking. “I want my gun. Now.”

“You attempted to jump out a window less than one minute ago, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m afraid a gun is not such a good idea.”

“I want my phone.”

“That will not happen,” Fai whispers, “and you know that.”

“Get out,” Kurogane hisses, and Fai does not obey him. He shuts the bedroom window and stays there, for a moment, clutching the windowsill in his white palms.

Kurogane drops back onto the bed, regulating his breathing. His heart pounds, as it always does when anyone wakes him. He was dreaming about a fire, about jumping for his life. Before this evening, he only sleepwalked into the bathroom and woke up in there, or under his bed. This evening is not so kind. The drugs must have staved off the worst of it, and now that he’s stopped drinking soda in the house, the worst has returned.

He should be better than this, he thinks.

“I am sorry,” Fai says quietly. “I did not realize how it was.”

Kurogane doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want Fai’s pity, and he doesn’t trust that pity, anyway. He glares at the back of that blond head. Outside, rain starts its happy tap on the glass, and thunder rumbles softly.

“I was always fascinated by rain as a child,” Fai rambles, pressing his forehead against the glass. “My mother said it rained because the sky loved the sun, and when the sun went away, the sky cried. Not a realistic woman, my mother. My brother said it rained because the clouds had to pee. He took after her, though he was a bit more...devious.”

It is the most Fai has ever said about his family, Kurogane realizes, and it doesn’t appear that Fai is going to leave, so Kurogane lies on his bed, atop the covers, folding his hands over his belly. He knots his fingers together, holding his arms taut to stop from trembling. The shake of fear shames him. Moko decides to crawl out from beneath the bed, then, and settles beside his arm, purring for no discernable reason.

“My mother also had stories about thunderstorms. None are particularly accurate, but very sweet,” Fai continues. “In the sky, a great man rode his chariots in the clouds, and it made a terrible sound. Of course, other variations were that the man was starting a family with his wife in the sky. A ruckus, in any case. But thunder was always because something exciting happened in the sky.”

Kurogane shuts his eyes, listening to the rain, the gentle thunder, Moko’s comforting purr, and Fai’s voice, talking softly of old stories. “Get to the point.”

“My brother, naturally, said thunder was cloud farting. He was very single-minded as a boy. Both were wrong about these things. Eventually, when I read well enough, I researched the thunder and rain myself. Imagine my surprise when it was entirely unrelated to my family’s theories!” Fai laughs lightly. “I wanted to be a meteorologist, then.”

“Farmer?” Kurogane reminds him.

“That, too. I was an ambitious child. There were so many things I wanted to be,” Fai confesses. “Thirty-six, and I have not become a single one of those things. But we are always hopeful as children, Kurogane. We always are.”

Kurogane says nothing. Fai turns his head, unsticking his forehead from the window. Kurogane’s eyes are shut, and he breathes softly. The cat mirrors him, blue eyes closed. They both sleep.

Fai leaves, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

Fai asks to be taken somewhere in the late hours, and Kurogane obliges, thinking he might learn something valuable (on top of that, he might be able to overpower Fai and run off). In all the time he has spent in the Pennsylvania house, he has tried to get his gun back from Fai (always failing), tried stealing Fai’s laptop (another failure), and attempted to ransack Fai’s own room to find files (failure, failure, failure). Fai only smiles at those things, like Kurogane is a poorly- behaved yet endearing dog.

So he agrees. Kurogane takes one of the King’s many cars and drives where Fai asks him to, and Fai turns up the volume, looking pensively out the window. In the dark, fields of corn are lit by blue moonlight. Fai turns up the volume even more.

“Why do you always do that?” Kurogane snaps. “Hard of hearing?”

Fai glances at the rearview mirror, nonchalant, and mouths,  _ microphone.  _ Of course there would be a microphone. Fai cracks a quick smile and remarks, “Old habit, I suppose.”

“Hmmph. Where are you going?”

“That is always a good question,” Fai murmurs. “Tell me about your night terrors, Kurogane.”

He squeezes the wheel. “No.”

“I will tell you worse things about myself,” Fai laughs. “Trust me.”

“Trust  _ you _ ?” Kurogane scoffs. “Where are we driving to?”

“You won’t tell me about them?”

“I already said I wouldn’t.”

“Fine. Then I’ll start. My brother was addicted to painkillers,” Fai says. “It tore our relationship apart. I could never cure him.”

“Oh.” Kurogane clears his throat, and Fai reaches over, touching the man’s knee while he peers out the window. Kurogane smacks the hand away, and it returns. He gives up. They do not speak until Kurogane sees a dirt driveway, and Fai tells him to take a right. Kurogane obeys, pulling in to see a shack of a house with a porch light. Fai pats the man’s knee and pops out of the car.

Kurogane starts backing out, seeing his chance, but slams on the breaks when a woman with long, blond hair shoots out from nowhere at all, rushing right behind the car and waving her hands. He groans. She runs up to his window, gesturing for him to roll it down. She wears a very long, button-up flannel (a nightshirt) and furry boots. Pants have not made this trip, either. He rolls down the window.

“Hey Long-name,” Chii says.

“God-fucking-dammit,” Kurogane hisses.

“Yeah. Me too,” she replies, shrugging. Fai rushes over to her and presses a finger to his lips before mouthing  _ turn off the car _ .

Kurogane has no idea what he’s getting himself into, now. He turns it off. Fai and Chii open the door for him before he unbuckles himself. He shakes his head and gets out, and all three walk to the house. To his surprise, no one even approaches the door. They sit on the porch. Chii pulls out a bottle of gin (from where, he can only speculate) and starts guzzling. Fai slides his cigarette case out from his coat pocket and taps Chii; she lights it for him.

“ _ Anyone  _ wanna tell me what we’re doing here?” Kurogane asks. He’s extra unnerved. He didn’t think Chii would be in Pennsylvania.

“We’re having fun,” Chii decides. “You just don’t know what fun looks like.”

“He doesn’t,” Fai agrees. “Kurogane is always so serious.”

“What are we  _ doing _ ?” Kurogane demands.

“Does he know?” Chii asks Fai, and the blond makes a gesture that neither means ‘yes’ nor ‘no’.

“Do I know  _ what _ ?” he asks. “Yeah, I know I’m being forced into some plot—it’d be nice to, I don’t know,  _ know what the damn plot is  _ by now.”

“Cool it, Long-name.”

“It’s  _ Kurogane _ .”

“I like Long-name better,” Chii says simply, and Kurogane realizes he can’t just smack the Princess of Oil, no matter how badly he wants to, so he folds his arms across his chest. With Chii as a witness, he can’t exactly knock Fai out, either. They’ve put him in an unfortunate bind.

“Fine,” Kurogane snaps. “Microphones.”

“Daddy is always listening!” Chii complains, bursting like this is something she has kept in for too long. “I sing a song that has ‘damn’ in it and Daddy texts me to scold me.”

“She is right,” Fai agrees. “There are cameras in every estate he owns—video feeds. The only ‘clear’ space was my bedroom in our California suite—‘out of decency’, as he put it. The Pennsylvania one is full of cameras. There is no privacy in the entire house.”

It explains the feeling Kurogane has in the estate. He really is being watched, after all.

“Daddy keeps out of my room, too,” Chii adds.

“Why is he watching?”

Both Chii and Fai glance at one another. Fai takes the bottle from her and starts drinking, himself.

“He goes on about betrayal. He thinks everyone will betray him,” Chii grumbles. “Power. That kinda thing. I get it, but he goes too far. He always harps on me for bringing home boyfriends. It’s not fair.”

“You’re all here for privacy,” Kurogane realizes, and the blonds nod.

“There are things I have to tell you that I cannot in the house,” Fai replies. “The first, of course, is that you need to play along better. I have been trying to tell you that, but you are not, apparently, going to understand unless I tell you it directly. I do not like  _ drugging  _ you. I do not like calling you sick. But I have to do these things if you keep talking about being kidnapped or blackmailed—the King has ears everywhere in the house, and you’ve given me no option, but to say you’re sick. I’m begging you to play along. For your safety—and the safety of everyone else —you have to play along.”

Fai’s words are quick, rushed, and there is the sound of an apology without the apology itself. Kurogane glares. He does not accept it.

“You had the doctors  _ shot _ .”

“Because they thought you told the truth.”

“I  _ did! _ ”

“I  _ know  _ you did,” Fai returns sharply, “but it is in  _ everyone’s  _ best interests that you learn to tell a lie, for once in your life. Do you know how inconvenient it is to hide a body? Television makes it look easy, and it is  _ not  _ easy.”

“Nope,” Chii agrees.

“Does he know what you’re doing?” Kurogane asks. “Killing people?”

“Kurogane, he provides transport for human trafficking. Do you honestly think the King would care if I have a few men shot?” Fai sighs. “You are so, so daft sometimes.”

“So he’s  _ involved! _ ” Kurogane says, perking up. Chii looks at him as if he declared the sky was blue. “Trafficking—and weapons! What about the weapons?”

“Down, boy,” Chii mutters, sardonic. She steals Fai’s cigarette and takes one puff before handing it back. The blonds exchange poisons while Kurogane holds his breath. “Daddy follows the money—that’s all. If it’s weapons, then fine. You’ll get a war and wars need tanks and tanks need gas.”

“Your lady friend’s conspiracy theories have some truth,” Fai adds, smiling quickly. Tomoyo sits like a stone in the absence. Kurogane wants her to know she was right, too, and that the High Head of International Business Affairs was wrong to mock her. He can’t. He misses her.

“Heroin?” Kurogane asks.

Chii looks pointedly at Fai, but Fai only smiles with perfect innocence. The chemist. Kurogane narrows his eyes.

“I only designed it,” Fai says lightly. “I did not make it, myself.”

“Then why were you in Venezuela?”

“To visit the labs, Kurogane, and they were atrocious. No sanitary measures taken whatsoever.” Fai’s face twists, annoyed. The blonds exchange poisons, again; Chii takes the cigarette and Fai takes the gin. “I am a professional. The labs were not. They wanted to make it quickly, not correctly. I had to see to it that they would change their tune.”

“What were you?” Kurogane asks. “Before this.”

“I worked for Piffle and designed drugs. I have absolutely no experience in public relations, if you couldn’t tell.” Fai grins. “Then again, you do not have any experience in actual security. Frauds—the both of us.”

“I’m not a fraud.”

“Yes, you are. You’re on Celes Oil’s website as the head of security,” Fai hums, and Kurogane has not heard of this until now. He glares. “Your team will find it suspicious, naturally, but—we have time. We do have some time.”

“Until November,” Chii says.

“Why?”

The blonds smile at one another before Chii says, “That’s when Daddy rewrites his will, like he does every year. It looks pretty good for me and Fai, right now, but it might not look so good in the next rewrite.”

“November eleventh,” Fai remarks. “We have four weeks.”

“Until?” Kurogane presses, and the blonds give one another a quick glance, nodding. At the same time, they loop an arm around Kurogane’s shoulder, smiling conspiratorially. Dread bubbles in his stomach.

“Don’t you know?” Fai asks.

“We’re killing Daddy!”

Kurogane stares at the driveway. What did he expect? All Fai said was ‘I need your help to escape’, but that could have meant—anything. Anything. Kurogane yanks the gin right out of Fai’s free arm, throat dry. Chii grins; Fai’s eyes are alert, bright, waiting for the agent’s answer.

“I’m fucked,” Kurogane croaks. He chugs it.

* * *

After that, Kurogane takes Fai’s advice. He pretends nothing at all is wrong, and it is all very unnatural, but Fai feigns complete joy over the whole affair. He stops drugging Kurogane. Doctor Kinomoto stops visiting. Kurogane walks around, playing pretend, and Fai plays with his hair and turns on soap operas. In Spanish. Kurogane suspects Fai likes watching it just to translate it for him.

He still doesn’t trust Fai, just as he wouldn’t trust a wild viper, but he ‘behaves’. Fai plays with Kurogane’s fingers as the woman on the screen throws a phonebook at a man with dashing, silver hair. The man dodges it with his mouth hanging open. The agent and the lover lounge on Fai’s bed, legs tucked under covers, and it feels like a lazy morning. In another situation, Kurogane would have called this love. The feeling stirs, but he knows it isn’t genuine. It is solely for the video feeds.

Moko lies on his lap, watching the television intently, flicking her head around at the action.

“She is pregnant,” Fai says. “Her lover is very surprised.”

The man talks quickly in Spanish.

“Ah—he says it isn’t possible because she is barren, and he is sterile,” Fai adds, chuckling. The woman throws another phonebook, crying. “He is, apparently, wrong.”

“Do you like languages?” Kurogane asks. Fai smiles.

“My mother was an American citizen by birth, then a British one by choice, and finally decided Finland was the correct one,” he remarks. “She spoke three languages around us as children. My Spanish is not as good as the rest, I’m afraid.”

“You don’t have an accent at all—in English.”

“Because I am very practiced, dear,” Fai hums. “Do you speak Japanese?”

“Not well, anymore. Never learned writing.” Kurogane shrugs. The woman on the screen gasps, loudly, and another woman joins the scene. Fai’s face brightens. “What, now?”

“The other woman. Our heroine is  _ not  _ pleased.”

More phonebooks, thrown. The women attack one another while the silver-haired man looks dramatically between them, creasing his brow. He is trying for distress, but only achieving a look like the sun is in his eyes. The actor looks directly at the camera and says something.

“He asks which love he should choose. You see, he was going to leave the barren woman, but pregnancy complicates things. If I were the heroine, I would leave him. Affairs are not kind.”

Kurogane stares at him. Fai is having an affair with  _ him _ . Fai seems to sense Kurogane’s thoughts because he smiles, shaking his head.

“It is not the same. Mr. Ashura and I are very open. When I meet a lover, he knows about it. When he meets one, I know about it. We keep it all on the table. I am jealous, often, but nothing is done without my knowledge.”

“It’s weird to me.”

“Of course it is. You’ve grown up thinking love is shared between two, but that is selfish. Love is selfish, though, isn’t it?”

“It’s selfless,” Kurogane replies, because he believes that.

“It is hardly ‘selfless’ to ask another to give all of himself to you,” Fai argues gently. “Love is needy, like a child. It asks for everything, but can never return the favor.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You’re a romantic, dear.” Fai smiles. “Of course you don’t.”

Fai lights a cigarette, and Kurogane reminds him, “That’s gonna kill you.”

“I hardly mind if I lose ten years in the future. I should never like to be old.” Fai inhales, exhales. Sunlight from the window passes through the haze. “After that, I will not be beautiful.”

Kurogane says, “You aren’t all looks.”

“Yes. I am beauty and brains, aren’t I?”

“I’m just saying—there’s still a life, even if you get old. You’re only shortening that. I wish you’d quit.”

Fai studies the man thoughtfully. Commercials have ended, and the show returns. The pregnant woman sits in a garden, surrounded by white violets. She says something to herself, and a single, melodramatic tear drips down her cheek.

“There is no hope,” Fai murmurs. “That’s what she says.”

* * *

They return to the shack several times. Chii joins them, always bringing along something for entertainment—gin, vodka, scotch, tobacco, and so on. Kurogane asks them why they only sit on the porch instead of going inside, and Chii scrunches up her face, confessing, “It’s abandoned and full of ghosts.”

“Ghosts,” Kurogane scoffs, and Fai smiles lightly.

“The Pennsylvania house is haunted,” Chii adds, and she shivers. “I don’t like it. Guy died there. I don’t stay there, even if Daddy wants me to.”

“Where are you even staying?”

“Bought a house,” is her casual reply. Kurogane is older than this woman and cannot afford a house, but, then again, he isn’t the Princess of Oil. “Lots of cows around here. Boring. Nothing to do. But I have to go where Daddy says—it’s the rule.”

The next time they go to the shack, Chii doesn’t join them. Kurogane waits, but she never shows. Fai smokes, as per usual, and Kurogane holds off on knocking the man unconscious and running for it. Chii is unpredictable; she tends to appear whenever Kurogane attempts to run. He realizes this is a rare opportunity—to be alone with Fai, without cameras and microphones—and he asks, “Really love the guy?”

“Of course.” Fai raises his brows. “I do not expect you to understand, Kurogane. It is a rather twisted affair.”

“Obviously. You wanna kill him.”

“Sometimes,” Fai murmurs, “you have to destroy a person. It doesn’t mean you haven’t loved that person. As it stands, I am happy with Mr. Ashura, but I would be happier elsewhere.”

Silence hangs between them.

“It’s all for money, then,” Kurogane says, and Fai smiles.

“You think that is cruel, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I have other reasons, too.” Fai taps his cigarette and red ashes float, catching the slight breeze. “I hate planes. I’m not allowed to wear purple. I tire of waxes. My hair is destroyed.”

“Then just leave him,” Kurogane says, furrowing his brow.

“It is not so easy, dear.”

“It is.”

“Kurogane,” Fai chides, shaking his head. He looks away, looking at the driveway. “If I wanted to run, would you follow?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“You’re the biggest liar I’ve ever met,” Kurogane returns curtly, and Fai laughs to himself, shaking his head. Since the King’s departure, the man’s roots have grown out. “Where would you run?”

“I miss Finland,” Fai murmurs, “but I can never return home.”

“Why?”

Fai tosses his cigarette, suddenly, and it bounces off leaves, landing in the pebble-and-dirt driveway. He coughs.

“The same reason,” Fai says, “that I cannot leave, here.”

“You did something.”

“Of course I did.”

“What was it?”

Fai shrugs lightly, as if he might not know what. “Enough questions, Kurogane. I just want to enjoy your company for a while, while we still have the time.”

“And after that?”

Fai silences him with a kiss Kurogane doesn’t expect, and Kurogane doesn’t know why it’s happening, but Fai grabs his face and Kurogane grabs Fai’s, everything in his head telling him he can do it, this time—he can knock him out and run for his life, run to safety, and go home. But Kurogane does not even listen to himself. When Fai breaks away, he has a question in his throat, but it doesn’t cut the air.

Kurogane kisses him again, and Fai is smiling against his lips, touching his hair. It should be like this, always, but it can’t be like this. A man will die, and another will reap the benefits, vanishing, and Kurogane will be left in the wake of it with the blood on his hands.

But for just a bit, Kurogane pretends.

* * *

A flight across the country—back to California. Kurogane brims with hope and watches the ground as the cows disappear. Mr. Ashura is not on their flight—he is coming directly from Saudi Arabia. November eleventh will come. But for now, Fai holds his hand and mourns that they never visited the Philadelphia Art Museum.

They return to Fai’s suite and Fai flits about, checking all his fake art. Moko stays in the cat carrier, even though it’s open, and hisses manically. Fai makes more calls, speaking in (presumably) Finnish while Kurogane walks into the living space, turning on the television. Everything is domestic.

Four weeks have passed since Kurogane’s kidnapping, now, and he understands the rhythm of things. Fai spends his daylight hours on the phone with different people, speaking measuredly in English, curtly in Spanish, and sweetly in Finnish. Fai’s suite, just as in Pennsylvania, is empty of servants—Fai tries for as much privacy as possible, Kurogane reasons, though nothing is private but the man’s bedroom. Electric eyes are always watching, ears listening.

Fai hangs up while Kurogane attempts coaxing Moko out, and says, “Mr. Ashura wants to have a Halloween banquet. I thought it might be a good opportunity.”

He knows what it means. He swallows.

“...to get to know him better,” Fai adds.

“I’m sure it is,” Kurogane says quietly. Moko scrunches at the back of the carrier, pupils hugely dilated. Kurogane retracts his hand. She usually attacks him when her eyes do that. He isn’t in the mood for claws.

* * *

On the night of the banquet, Fai returns his gun. Kurogane aims it straight at Fai, of course, but he can’t follow through, fire, run. Fai stares at the weapon, unflinching, and only says, “It would probably be better for us both, of course, but I would worry for Chii’s future.”

Kurogane grimaces and tucks the gun away. He can’t hurt Fai, let alone kill him. He doesn’t want to. Fai shakes his head. The men exchange sad, tense expressions, and enter the banquet together.

Kurogane recognizes no one at all. It is, very loosely, a costume party, but most of the guests have formal wear. The ‘costume’ aspect might be a colorful tie or an unusual hat, neither of which is a costume at all. Some guests of the ‘daring’ variety have tiny masks over their eyes. Kurogane asks who they are; Fai whispers, “Business associates, for the most part. Smile nicely. For all they know, we are highly-valued employees of Celes Oil.”

“This is such bullshit,” Kurogane mutters.

Inside, of course, he does not feel so confident. There are at least fifty guests peopling the house, chattering loudly. An instrumental band plays joyful songs on the piano, violin, cello, xylophone, and cymbals. Fai sips champagne and kisses a woman’s hand, smiling politely when she asks who he is.

“I am the PR consultant of Celes Oil,” Fai says easily. The woman is visibly disappointed and wishes them well, going off.

This happens again and again. For the most part, no one even looks at them, since neither of them is impressive enough to warrant any followup from the guests. Everyone is busy chattering, making new associates, boasting of the sales of the year, proving their individual importance in the only way their circle values.

Hours pass, and Kurogane follows Fai around while Fai points discreetly at guests, explaining their connection to the King. This woman has a major steel company. This man is the president of a famous airline. These brothers regularly rig elections overseas. The King is professional and civil with them all, walking with a target on his head.

His daughter wants him murdered so that she can benefit off her inheritance. Fai wants the same (and more, but Kurogane does not know how much more). Kurogane is the one they have chosen to fire that shot, as neither ‘feel capable’ of doing it, themselves. Kurogane, knowing he faces death if he refuses, does not have much of a choice. If he had shot Fai in Venezuela, he would not be here, but he did not shoot Fai, because he couldn’t.

The band plays, and the guests are drunker and louder, and Fai finally loops his arm through Kurogane’s elbow, murmuring, “We ought to have some air, darling.”

Fai pulls Kurogane off, and they leave the banquet, disappearing through rows and hallways far from the gathering. Behind him, he still hears the muffled bustle of a party. “Where are we going?”

“Privacy.” Fai pauses, lowering his voice. “He is outside. No one else, is. He is standing in a blind spot—no cameras can see the area.”

Kurogane nods with some difficulty. They weave through halls—all of the servants are concentrated within the banquet, dashing about, serving the guests, and none disturb them, here. The house seems eerily still, quiet. Fai stops before sliding glass doors, and Kurogane sees the back of Mr. Ashura, standing alone, watching his own land on a stone porch. Dark, red roses abound, lining the porch’s edge prettily. A fountain, here, too, with lights beneath its water—a man with a sword who chases a dragon who chases a serpent who chases the man; it is the same one from Pennsylvania. How didn’t he notice it before?

“Go,” Fai whispers. “I will wait.”

“Fai...”

Fai kisses him, patting Kurogane’s pocket where the gun sits. He raises his voice for the cameras and microphones, sounding cheerful. “You have not really bonded with him. I think it’s important that you do—it would make me happy. Would you like to make me happy?”

Kurogane nods stiffly.

“Be sure to behave yourself. I’ll leave the two of you alone,” Fai says, smiling, and he pushes Kurogane towards the door. Kurogane swallows, sliding a pane aside, and glances over his shoulder. Fai waves. “I will be quite fine. I need to use the bathroom—I’ll join you, later, dear.”

Kurogane looks away, stepping outside, and slides the door shut behind him. Mr. Ashura does not even react to his presence until Kurogane walks right to his side, clearing his throat. The King holds a glass of scotch, stout and thick, in his hand. The fountain light reflects faintly off his black hair, and the moon shines blue upon them both.

“Hey,” is what Kurogane decides is an appropriate greeting.

“Mr. Suwa,” the King greets him, flashing a quick smile. He extends his hand, and Kurogane shakes it. The gun in his coat feels heavy. “And what is your costume, tonight?”

“Not wearing one.”

“Ah.” Mr. Ashura returns his hands to his coat pockets, looking at the fountain. “I, too, do not like disguises.”

Kurogane nods.

“You seem to be doing well, Mr. Suwa. I am glad,” Mr. Ashura says carefully. “You were unwell in Pennsylvania. My daughter is very mentally ill, I confess, so I am not a stranger to these sorts of things.”

The King is being kind. Kurogane wishes he wouldn’t.

“She had a nervous breakdown in her college years and never completed her studies, but I prefer her happiness over a degree,” Mr. Ashura murmurs. “Of course—you cannot tell her I said that much. I know she behaves badly, often, and doesn’t carry herself well, but she is a good girl, and very proud. She is like her mother. Neither ever says what is wrong.”

Kurogane swallows.

“I have come to like you, Mr. Suwa,” Mr. Ashura decides. “You know your place. Not many do.”

Kurogane touches the gun in his pocket. This man—some part of him is good, and some part of him is capable of love. But this is the same man who traffics innocent people into prostitution, who sends ammunition and guns for the sake of war (and its profits), who introduces potent heroin into impoverished villages—terrible, selfish deeds for the sake of money. Kurogane promised himself he would stop the death around Celes Oil, once, and while he imagined things going differently, isn’t this, in some way, what he wanted?

“You do not speak much, do you?” the King chuckles.

Kurogane shoots him in the side of the head.

Even with a silencer, the shot rings between his ears. The King wobbles, dropping upon the porch like a jellyfish. Kurogane hears his own heartbeat, stepping away as dark blood pools. He cannot feel a thing, numb; he is there, but not present, now. Skull, brain bits. Skull, brain bits. He has killed a man before, but it was different, it was sudden, there were people in danger. Not this. Not this. He watches the scene from somewhere outside himself. Worse, still, the man on the ground keeps blinking, shifting.

The door slides open behind him. Kurogane instinctively stands back, makes room. Fai grabs the gun from his hands and stalks over to Mr. Ashura, physically turning his head by the chin. Mr. Ashura blinks up at him, face twitching. Fai presses the gun into the man’s forehead and fires. The body goes still.

“Jesus,” Kurogane croaks.

“Don’t pity him, Kurogane,” Fai says. “This is more than he deserves.”

Kurogane swallows.

“Now what?”

A metallic click. The hair stands up on Kurogane’s neck. Fai is aiming straight at him, blank-faced.

“Fai?”

Fai’s eyes are sharp in the dark—cold, cold, cold. This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t make any sense at all. He did what Fai asked; they should be running off, exploring Europe, living off Fai’s inheritance. Wasn’t that what they talked about? Wasn’t that the plan?

“The hell are you doing?” Kurogane repeats. He doesn’t recognize the look on the Fai’s face. Fai says nothing at all. “Hey—you can’t—”

The scream of a gun, a sharp pain. The glass door sliding shut, again, and Kurogane can’t see, but he feels stone against his cheek for a moment. Then nothing. He doesn’t feel anything at all.

Fai shoots. Kurogane bleeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year all! I apologize for being away. Many life things happened at once.


	4. The Pawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomoyo cracks under pressure. Xing Huo tries to help. Kurogane resurfaces. Chaos!

The cat’s stolen. Sakura and Mr. Li stop house-sitting, carefully locking all the windows and, finally, the door. House-sitting was never supposed to last long; it was supposed to be four days. Tomoyo was the only one who returned after four days. It should not have been that way, and she’s angry with herself, and even angrier that Moko’s gone. Someone took the cat. No one would break into a house just to steal a cat, unless, of course, they were doing something for Kurogane.

Another  _ tick  _ of boxes that this isn’t really a kidnapping. She hates it, all of it, because she doesn’t know what she should do. Her sister gives her guidelines. Kurogane is reported missing to Venezuelan authorities, but no one seems to notice him. He’s either dead, or he’s left Venezuela by then. If the cat’s taken, that’s an indication it’s the latter.

Xing Huo comes back the day after Tomoyo, taking a five day vacation the day Kurogane and Tomoyo go to Venezuela; Xing Huo visits Hong Kong, as she has family living there, but does not speak much of them. Tomoyo suspects the reasons why, since she knows Xing Huo’s family history, having poured over her personal files before deciding to hire her. Xing Huo’s immediate family situation is broken up, having been raised by her paternal uncle, and never meeting her biological parents. Meeting extended family, Tomoyo thinks, must be awkward at best. They might be strangers to one another.

When the team learns Kurogane is missing, Xing Huo is the only cool-headed one. Sakura cries a lot. Mr. Li disappears behind his desk, making calls to Venezuelan hospitals (he can’t even speak Spanish, so it’s useless, but well-intentioned). Carla actually stops eating her cold Chinese leftovers and puts down her fork, grave-faced. Xing Huo is the one who asks if they have an extraction plan, and it stirs Tomoyo back into action.

She’s a leader. This is what she does. She tells them the clearances will take a few weeks for all of them, so they must do research in the meanwhile. Tomoyo haunts Kurogane’s personal email. Cat pictures. Fai asking if he would like to accompany him to a gallery showing. Later emails proving they did go to a showing, after all (and no wire recordings), because Fai types:  _ I must remember, next time we see a showing, that you know absolutely nothing about art. _

Tomoyo scowls at Kurogane’s screen.

She sends an email to Fai’s account, out of spite and out of curiosity that he might answer —she uses Kurogane’s personal email.

_ I was thinking of going blond. Do you think it suits me? _

Three hours later, she gets a response:  _ Your hair type is notoriously stubborn against bleach. My hair type is not as stubborn, and picks up to white in just one session. Yours requires at least two sessions, and you will have orange hair in between. Considering the length of it, as well, it will be quite a process. I do not recommend attempting it yourself, however, here are salons in your area that can assist you. _

Fai has listed four salons that are within two miles of her own house. It chills her; he knows this is not Kurogane. She asks Carla to check the IP address, but nothing comes of it. The IP bounces around, coming from France and Indonesia and Lithuania all at once. Useless. Tomoyo sends another email.

_ We should have a date. _

Instant reply:  _ I am afraid you are not my type, darling, but I am flattered by your interest. _

She replies: _ Where are you? _

No response. Carla lingers in the doorway of Kurogane’s office, an iced coffee at hand in a plastic cup (her name is spelled ‘Karla’ in marker on its side). The women look at one another.

“He’s fucking with us,” Tomoyo says. “Intentionally, now.”

“Sorry, Tomoyo,” Carla murmurs. “The IP hops all over. He might be using a TOR browser. Guy doesn’t want to be found.”

“I just know he has Kurogane.”

Carla audibly sips iced coffee through a green straw, swallowing. “It’s been three weeks. We should consider that Mr. Suwa is, well...”

“No,” Tomoyo says quickly. “The cat.”

“You said the guy’s fucking with us.” Carla shrugs. “Who’s to say he wouldn’t keep doing it?”

“Carla, Kurogane sent this asshole cat pictures and the guy  _ still  _ wanted to go on dates. Why would he  _ murder  _ him?”

Carla stirs her straw in the cup, and it makes an awful, moaning noise. Carla looks at the ceiling, squinting, and finally says, “Maybe it was more convenient. Even if he didn’t want to. If there was bad stuff going on and he realized Mr. Suwa was an agent, it might have just been more convenient to get rid of him.”

“You can go back to work.”

“I’m just saying—”

“ _ I’m  _ just saying you can go back to work,” Tomoyo interrupts. She points to the door and keeps her eyes on her screen. “Come back when you have made progress for me.”

Carla shakes her head and leaves.

Tomoyo does not want to believe that a man’s death is solely a matter of convenience. Kurogane’s life is always giving her inconveniences, but she wants nothing more than to see him again. He has learned something. She knows it. She calls his cellphone, listening to the voicemail.

“Kurogane Suwa, not here. Leave a message.”

By now, she’s listened to this so many times that she just says the words along in an angry, mocking tone until she hears the beep. It comes. She stops mocking his message.

“Alright, Kurogane,” she begins. “The bad news is that your cat was stolen. Sorry. Worse news is that Mr. Li was there, too, so Sakura probably shouldn’t house-sit for you in the future if you’re really hung up on that. Worse news, still, is that your boyfriend knows where I live, apparently, so you should ask him to talk to you.”

She frowns.

“I’d like it if you came back alive,” she says. “I need to know what happened. ”

She hangs up.

* * *

Tomoyo stays too late after work, again. A janitor pops in, sweeping the hallway, and she pretends to be busy with actual work. (She has none.) They exchange short smiles. This man has seen her lingering in the office more times than not, so it is not surprising. She recognizes him by the sound of his footsteps—he has a slight limp, and one step is always louder than the other. By the time he is out of her way, Tomoyo shuts her work binder, glad to be finished the charade.

She gets up from her desk and leaves her office, making her way to another office she knows quite well, by now. She flicks on the light. In his absence, nothing has moved from it.

Tomoyo takes a seat in Kurogane’s swivel chair and adjusts it to a more reasonable height, one where her feet actually touch the floor. She settles back, looks at everything. His office is impeccably neat, and always was. Binders organized, tabbed precisely. Keyboard dusted. Desk still slightly filmy from the cleaner he used. Kurogane is the neatest person Tomoyo knows. Knew. She doesn’t know which tense is appropriate, now. Everything is a fog in that regard. How should she refer to Kurogane? Is he in the past or present?

She looks at the family portrait on his desk. He was an adorable child, already tall for his age. She picks it up, peals off the backing to find a year. Nothing is written there at all. She replaces the back and squints at the photograph. He was at most six. She puts it back.

Tomoyo turns Kurogane’s work computer on and enters the password. It’s  _ Moko123 _ , which she knows because it’s written on the index card Kurogane taped to the bottom of his keyboard (he must have thought no one would look for it there). She checks his work email. There’s nothing but spam, but—

Sakura has sent him an email. Tomoyo opens it, heavy-hearted, and reads it. Sakura is sweet, even via email. She shouldn’t read it, but she does. Tomoyo has always been poor with boundaries, but she learned it from Kendappa. She recalls seeing Kendappa’s notes in the margins of her own journal; Tomoyo would record her thoughts of the day and Kendappa’s writing might say  _ A bit dramatic, Tomoyo _ , and Tomoyo would retaliate by doing the same to her (she usually accused her of being a robot, however). She feels slightly guilty about it, sure, but does it matter? He can’t yell at her. It’s mostly spam.

Tomoyo turns off the computer and sends a text:  _ Are you awake? _

She pulls the chair back, pumps it to a level she thinks he left it at. Her feet dangle. What did the world look like from Kurogane’s height? From up here, she can see the rest of the empty chairs in the office. She imagines the backs of people’s heads, which people he could see in profile. She sees her own office, directly across from his amidst the sea of desks. She remembers how many times they would push their chairs backs just to give each other a knowing look over an annoying email, or some shenanigans from Sakura and Mr. Li. Will they get to do that again? What if they can’t? What if he’s dead?

She hasn’t truly let herself think of this possibility, since it scares her too badly. Kurogane has no surviving family—no one to give his things to—and her eyes burn at the thought. No family. Nothing. Once his things are gone, who will protect his memory? She puts her head down on his desk. How badly has she failed? What else can she do?

Her phone buzzes an answer:  _ I am. Are you still at the office? _

_ Bingo. _

_ You should go home. _

_ I know,  _ Tomoyo answers.

Tomoyo hesitates. She doesn’t want to write what she wants to write, or she doesn’t want to want what she wants. So she doesn’t write it, but stares at the screen, waiting for an answer.

_ I worry about you. _

She writes back,  _ I’ll be fine. Thank you. _

Tomoyo puts her head down on the desk and falls asleep.

* * *

Days pass. She leaves the office for once while the others continue working, or not. Sakura left the office earlier that day with a period-related migraine. Mr. Li and Xing Huo are following up on supposed sightings. Carla is busy with the Venezuelan airlines. She brings red wine, recalling Miss Yuuko’s request.

Tomoyo parks. Miss Yuuko’s house looks like a black shadow covered in flowers around the bend. She checks her wire, flicking it on. She says the date and time to the wire, for reference, and collects the bottle to her chest as she gets out, going to the door. Watanuki opens it after she knocks and simply says, “Miss Yuuko was expecting you. Come in.”

Nana jumps at the sight of Tomoyo, all black fur and bulk and brown eyes and a giant tongue. The dog bolts ahead of them, colliding loudly with a closed door. Watanuki mutters something to himself while he opens it, and Nana rushes inside, barking while Tomoyo holds her breath.

“Nana!” the woman inside exclaims. “Have we visitors?” Nana barks. “Oh, very good—you are so clever!”

Watanuki sighs, guiding her into the room. Miss Yuuko lounges on the Recamier again, smoking while incense smokes behind her. All of the windows are open, but the haze of remaining smoke remains, tickling Tomoyo’s throat. She tries to blink back irritated tears in silence.

“Agent Daidouji,” Miss Yuuko greets her cheerfully, eyes trailing over to the bottle. Her smile expands like a snake’s. “You brought a gift.”

“And I brought you questions.”

Miss Yuuko puffs on her pipe for a moment, nodding. She exhales, replying, “I prefer privacy between us. Watanuki, bring us some glasses, then leave us to it.”

Watanuki wordlessly disappears.

Miss Yuuko smiles slyly, pointing to a chair—a beige bergére—and says, “Do not be a stranger, Agent Daidouji. Be a dear and hand me the wine.” She pauses to glance at her guest. “Purple is certainly your color.”

Tomoyo takes a reluctant seat. She swallows to keep from coughing.

“I don’t know how you see anything at all in this smoke.”

“Why—with my eyes,” Miss Yuuko chuckles. Watanuki appears in the room with two glasses, frowning when he puts them on a table for the women. Miss Yuuko thanks him with a half-lidded smile and dismisses him. Tomoyo watches the back of him until the door shuts while Miss Yuuko pours their glasses. “I see the gears turning. Speak.”

“How do you afford a helper?”

“That is not what you want to ask.” Miss Yuuko hands her a glass. “Something has happened, and you have questions.”

“Flowright answered an email.”

“Oh?” Miss Yuuko’s eyebrows raise playfully, disappearing under her fringe. She takes a sip. “Do tell.”

“I used Kur—Mr. Suwa’s email to do it. I asked if I should go blond, pretending to be him. Flowright gave me a list of salons that are near  _ my own house _ . He knows who I am. Why?”

“Mr. Flowright is a clever man,” Miss Yuuko returns, looking out an opened window. “If Mr. Suwa did not appear to have any friends in his life, Mr. Flowright would certainly find out why. He would research the man. I am sure you did the same, yourself, Agent Daidouji.”

“What has Flowright told you about him?” she asks, curious, because this woman who has ‘never met’ Kurogane is right to say that he doesn’t have friends. Tomoyo is the closest thing. Then, Fai sort of is, too, but he is a bit more than that, isn’t he?

“He liked the man,” Miss Yuuko says. “It is interesting to me. Flowright does not really ‘like’ people. He pretends, quite well, but there is rarely any feeling behind it. For instance, he pretends to like me—convincing, yet an act all the same. I digress. He found your friend very handsome and amusing.” She smiles. “Of course, that might be bad news for Mr. Suwa.”

“Why?” She reflexively squeezes the glass.

“Nothing good typically happens to people he likes.” Miss Yuuko pointedly motions to Nana, and Nana approaches, rubbing her black nose against the furniture and snorting. “I am certain that you know my meaning.”

“Yep. The twin,” Tomoyo says, glancing at Nana. “That was a good tip—Finland. Thanks.”

“You should thank Nana. It was her idea.”

Nana looks very interested, watching Miss Yuuko. She is a beautiful dog. For a few moments, she even looks elegant. Tomoyo senses her only avenue to information, here.

“Nana have anything else to add?”

“Nana, what else can you tell me about your uncle?" Miss Yuuko asks, setting down her glass. Nana wags her tail, excited to hear her name so many times, and whines sharply. “Oh?  _ Oh,  _ that is very naughty. You shouldn’t say such things around our guests.”

Tomoyo rolls her eyes.

“Nana believes her uncle’s fortune will change very soon,” Miss Yuuko announces. “She also says you are very cute.”

“Nana does  _ not  _ say that.”

“You  _ are  _ very cute. I told you she is clever, did I not?”

“Are you...” Tomoyo squints. “Are you  _ flirting  _ with me?”

“Agent Daidouji, you are the one flirting with me,” Miss Yuuko muses. “You come to my house with a bottle of wine—and the last time you visited, you gave me earrings. Such a forward woman.”

Tomoyo takes a huge gulp of wine.

“His fortune will change?” Tomoyo asks. “Is that good, or bad?”

“Nana, what do you think?” Miss Yuuko regards the dog thoughtfully while Nana tilts her head. “Ah. I see. Nana believes it is good and bad, and that your friend will be involved in some sort of way. She does not know anything else. Pity.”

“Are you always this cryptic, or am I just special?” Tomoyo asks dryly. Miss Yuuko merely laughs.

* * *

Tomoyo and Xing Huo take seats directly at the bar. Tomoyo eats her food without tasting it, mostly concerned that she’s burning her hands in her fries. Xing Huo orders a cider and watches Tomoyo eat, resting her chin in her palm. Neither woman expected this to be their Friday evening, and yet, it is their Friday evening, all the same.

Tomoyo hasn’t slept in a bed for long enough that she doesn’t remember the last time she did it, and she’s exhausted, but she can’t go home, not until she knows what happened to Kurogane, but she is afraid to think about it right now, so she’s rattled, eager to speak, in no mood to be left to her own thoughts. She asks, “What do you actually do for fun?”

“I fix up motorcycles.”

Tomoyo snorts. “No, really.”

“Yes, really.”

“Really, really?”

Xing Huo nods. “I like machinery. There are manuals. It makes sense to me. People do not always make sense to me.”

“Do I make sense to you?” she asks.

“At times,” Xing Huo decides. “I think you get in your own way.”

“See, you get people,” Tomoyo laughs. “You read me like a book. You don’t need a manual.”

Xing Huo’s hand covers her mouth and she chuckles, just once. Tomoyo leans forward, clasping her free hand by the wrist. The women study each other, either excited or nervous.

“Did you just smile?” Tomoyo asks. “Why did you hide it?”

Xing Huo lowers her hand, slightly, but Tomoyo doesn’t release her wrist, and Xing Huo doesn’t shake it off. She says, “My teeth. I had bad teeth as a child. I was teased. I resolved to keep them hidden.”

Tomoyo erupts into tears, startling them both. Tomoyo lets go, touching her own face. She shakes her head, speaking hurriedly: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Xing Huo reaches forward, smoothing mascara off her cheek.

“Come,” she says gently.

The women get up and retreat to the bathroom, where Tomoyo’s eyes keep crying, even while she isn’t. Xing Huo patiently cleans the makeup off her face while Tomoyo stares up at her, embarrassed to be acting the way she is while Xing Huo remains steady, calm, collected, void of judgement. Tomoyo whispers, “I’m sorry they teased you. No one should feel bad about how they look when they’re happy. I’m sure you have a lovely smile.”

Xing Huo shakes her head. “Children are cruel.”

“Did you have braces?”

“We could not afford them,” Xing Huo admits. “My uncle provided what he could, back then.” She pauses. “He was my parent. I never knew my parents.”

“I think they’d like you. You’re very kind. They’d be proud.”

“Are you close with yours?”

“They’re dead.”

“Ah. I see.” Xing Huo frowns. “I sense this conversation is not going to stop the tears.”

Tomoyo laughs. They pause and turn to look in the mirror, where Tomoyo sees her own reflection peering back, red-eyed, and Xing Huo’s reflection, pale and refined. They meet eyes in the mirror, tentative.

“I can’t go home,” Tomoyo says slowly. 

“I know,” Xing Huo replies, “so come with me.”

* * *

Sakura emails over the transcript. The Agency has its own department of translation, but anything with Tomoyo’s name attached is looked at strangely, purposefully delayed, denied. The Agency looks at her as a glorified conspiracy theorist who thinks herself a psychic. The truth is that both labels are accurate, but Sakura sees the woman as entirely genuine. Tomoyo has a knack for sniffing out connections, and that is why she is good at her work. Tomoyo was the one who realized the faux-fur used in an Indonesia-based clothing company was not false at all, uncovered the source of fur—rabbits, angora rabbits—and brought them to trial. PETA crowned her queen for a day, and someone interviewed her for the website, and Tomoyo had the begrudging respect of the Agency for a few days.

She does think she’s psychic, too, but Tomoyo takes it very seriously. Tomoyo jokes often, equipped with a sense of humor, but it doesn’t extend to her “gut feelings”. Many higher-ups think Tomoyo is delusional, but they’re usually kind enough to only say so under their breath.

No matter. The translators have filled in the transcript, saying it is, indeed, Finnish. Sakura gives it a glance, pausing.

F.F.: He came on his own! I told him not to—I told him not to!

M.A.: He is in Venezuela, Fai! What am I supposed to do with him?

F.F.: Don’t do anything. Don’t.

M.A.: Is he here? How has he found the hotel, Fai? What have you done?

F.F.: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please!

That is all there is. Sakura sends it over and her phone buzzes on her desk. Tomoyo has not sent anything legible.

_ Jjjjjkkllskwqq. _

_ Tomoyo? _

_ It’s fucking nothing. It doesn’t help us. _

_ I’m sorry. _

Sakura grimaces. More dead ends, everywhere they turn.

Tomoyo sends out a mass text, then, addressed to Sakura, Syaoran, Carla, Xing Huo, and—Mr. Suwa. It really is depressing. Sakura knows how often Tomoyo still calls him. The woman works in his old office, too, as if  _ someone  _ has to work there, as if having it empty means Mr. Suwa will never return to them.

_ We need permission to access most of the international files, but, for now, I want all of you to keep searching for records in Finland. Be creative. Spell ‘Fai Flowright’ a bunch of different ways, if you can, because that might be all we can do. Look for ‘Yuui’, too. That was his brother. Look for Celes Oil activity around there, too. Sorry for the lateness—I just wanted you all to start this in the office Monday morning. _

Carla texts back a picture of herself making an unflattering face, lit by her own phone screen—hair wrapped in a towel—and giving a thumbs up. Of course, Carla does things like that. Syaoran texts an affirmative ( _ I will start immediately tomorrow, Tomoyo _ ) and Xing Huo, true to form, only replies with  _ Of course.  _ Sakura replies with a thumbs-up emoji and sets down her phone.

“We are never going to find you, Mr. Suwa,” she says to the air.

* * *

Xing Huo’s apartment is not exactly how Tomoyo would have pictured it, as it’s so empty it looks like no one truly lives in it. The decorations are sparse and Spartan. The only real trace of Xing Huo is on the coffee table, where there is a single bird figurine made of blue glass. Tomoyo peels off her coat and Xing Huo guides her to a bedroom, insistently setting her down. She finds the bedroom similarly unadorned, as if Xing Huo might be a monk.

“You keep it clean in here.”

“Yes,” Xing Huo agrees. “I don’t think well when there’s mess.”

“That seems like you.” Tomoyo toes off her shoes, but pauses. “Where are you sleeping?”

Xing Huo shrugs. “I can take the couch. Are you tired?”

“I feel awake.”

“I understand. I’ll make tea.”

Xing Huo leaves the room, and Tomoyo unbuttons her blouse, and unhooks her bra beneath her camisole. She unzips her skirt and takes the first real breath she has had in a few weeks. She settles under the covers and stares at the room, wondering about the life Xing Huo has led here. A quiet life, she thinks. She cannot imagine otherwise. She wonders what Kurogane would think, and the tears restart. She swears under her breath, shaking her head.

“Tomoyo?” Xing Huo calls softly from the doorway.

“I’m fine.”

“You do not look it.”

Tomoyo laughs weakly. She asks, “Can I be honest?”

Xing Huo nods.

“I fucked all of this up,” Tomoyo admits. “With Kurogane. I didn’t mean to, but I did it. I thought I was helping. You didn’t meet him, back then. You don’t know how bad he was. He was awful. I helped him become, you know, functional.

“I told him to start looking at Celes. It was me. He was so sick, you know? I wanted him to focus on something so he could get out of his head. He did exactly what I hoped. He found Flowright. He figured out something was wrong. But he wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t pushed him. Then I fucked up worse in Venezuela. I thought we were okay. I thought we were far enough away to go under the radar.”

Tomoyo takes in a shaky breath. Xing Huo sets a mug of tea on the nightstand and settles beside her on the bed, sitting upright next to Tomoyo’s curled up body.

“And now, I mean—Jesus Christ, I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if he’s safe.”

Tomoyo’s mouth starts genuinely crying for the first time that evening. Xing Huo runs a hand over Tomoyo’s hair.

“I’ve never known him the way you did,” Xing Huo says quietly. “I did not know how sick he was. I am sorry this hurts you so badly.”

“Did I kill him?” Tomoyo croaks.

“No, you didn’t kill him.” Xing Huo pulls Tomoyo’s hair away from her eyes. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I can stay.”

Tomoyo catches Xing Huo’s hand before it vanishes. “Why are you doing this?”

Xing Huo thinks for a little while. She turns off the light, slides out of her clothes, and nestles in beside her guest. Tomoyo rolls over and touches Xing Huo’s cheek, whispering, “Is this okay?”

Xing Huo gently holds the smaller woman’s face, nodding. They kiss, once, softly, and then again, and then again.

* * *

Tomoyo goes home for the first time in weeks, bringing along her clothes from the previous day and a box of work binders Xing Huo asked her to hold onto. She dusts off a few things in her apartment, but finds nothing really amiss. She throws out food that has gone bad and has to grocery shop again. In her neighborhood, life has continued as before. The kids still ride their bikes around and the smokers still wave to her when she passes them. No one asks where she’s been, but this doesn’t surprise her, since she keeps her life rather private. She calls Kurogane as an impulse, leaving a message: “You need to come back. I have something to tell you. It isn’t bad. I don’t think it is, anyway. Or it is, and I need you to yell at me.”

She hangs up and returns to an unfinished project still on the form in her bedroom: a dress she’s altering. She tries sewing by hand, which she has often done to calm her mind, but her hands shake too much, and she gives up. She gives up and leaves it be, crawling back into her own bed. She strips down entirely and is certain everything feels just as it did before. The sheets are the same and the pillows still smell like her conditioner. She shuts her eyes.

When she opens her eyes, it’s dark outside. How long did she sleep? She rolls out of bed and shuffles down her hallway, but pauses. Her gut’s talking. She checks her phone. No new messages, no missed calls. Tomoyo sighs and comes down to the kitchen, pouring herself a drink. She nearly calls Kurogane again, but decides against it. Instead, she sends a text.

_ Thank you for taking care of me last night. _

Tomoyo waits for a response. Xing Huo normally responds quickly. But nothing happens. Tomoyo wonders and worries if she misread the situation, if, perhaps, Xing Huo wasn’t as comfortable with things as she thought. Tomoyo sends another.

_ It was probably inappropriate. I’m sorry. At minimum, it’s irresponsible. I’m your superior. I understand if you’re uncomfortable with it. I’m so sorry. _

She sips from her glass and waits, but there are no responses to her messages. Tomoyo decides that, rationally, only a few things are likely: Xing Huo is asleep, or Xing Huo wants nothing to do with her anymore. It makes sense. Still.

Her gut’s talking. Her gut says  _ wrong _ .

She sends a final text for the evening.

_ I hope you’re okay. _

* * *

Sakura visits Miss Yuuko’s house because she needs someone to water the flowers. Sakura spends some time looking at the snapdragons, marveling at them. They are two feet tall. She has never seen snapdragons look like this—possible, of course, but it’s rare. She loves flowers. How fitting, of course, that she is named after one.

This is, decidedly, a good break. Nothing is going right in the office. Mr. Suwa remains missing and both Tomoyo and Xing Huo did not come into work. Carla and Syaoran mostly darted around the office the whole day, taking turns calling people’s cellphones, growing more and more worried at a lack of answers. Even Kendappa, Tomoyo’s sister, admitted she did not know what was happening. A bad sign. Kendappa reveals very little, anyway, but especially doesn’t reveal when she’s in the dark.

She writes Mr. Suwa an email he won’t see, telling him what happened, and wishes him well. She sends Syaoran’s love. She tells him to come home. She is frightened that he’s dead, too, because he can’t be found.

But for now, the flowers are good. She fixes on her most pleasant smile and knocks on the door. Watanuki answers. She has researched him based on Tomoyo’s recommendation—he almost completed a degree, but fell short of it. Other than that, there is nothing particularly interesting about him, aside from the fact that he works for Miss Yuuko.

“Good morning,” she tells him. He has a sterile face, perfectly blank and neutral, like a politician listening to an uncomfortable question. “I am here to water the flowers.”

“Miss Yuuko informed me of that,” Watanuki replies.

“I need a watering can,” she says, just as Watanuki points to the side. She follows his finger and sees a can beside a coiled up, green hose. “Oh! Sorry, I just thought... Well, I wanted you to know that I’m here, too, so you’re not...”

She doesn’t know what she’s trying to say, so she looks at him, hoping he’ll finish her sentence. Watanuki doesn’t. He fixes his glasses, pushing them up his nose.

“Water Miss Yuuko’s flowers and be on your way,” Watanuki says sternly, and he shuts the door. Sakura stands at the doorstep, dumbfounded. People are not generally so terse with her.

Sakura rounds the corner of the house and struggles with a rusty, rough knob before she manages to turn the water on. It takes a bit, and her hands feel dirty and gritty. Surprisingly, she doesn’t mind. Everyone thinks of her as little and dainty, which is hardly fair. Sakura is comfortable in a mess and happy with dirt. As a girl, she brought her dolls out and they were always archeologists, digging. Her mother was never happy that they needed to be washed, complaining that “little girls aren’t supposed to be this dirty”—oh, well. Sakura has never grown out of that.

The snapdragons are beautiful. Fuchsia and orange. Another plant is pure white, pretty. Another is bright orange like fire. Another is burgundy-purple, white near the petal roots. Sakura fills the watering can, looking happily at the plants. They are gorgeous towers, tall, with vibrant flowers up to the tip. Sakura can see tall sunflowers near the back of the house and supposes she should water those, too—they’re quite a spectacle, taller than she is. 

Her toes get wet through her canvas shoes and she panics. She overfilled the can. She whispers, “oops” and rushes over, turning the water off and pouting at her damp feet. She begins watering the snapdragons, singing to herself.

_ Earth angel, earth angel, will you be mine _ ?

The snapdragons drink up water. She empties half the can on them and turns, looking to the sunflowers. They lean against a white, wooden garden arch that leads into a little area squared off by a matching white fence. She takes the watering can, walking along the pebbled path to the sunflowers. Miss Yuuko has a beautiful property, as much as it’s a mismatch in the city.

_ My darling dear, love you all the time... _

She tilts the can and smiles at the sunflowers. Singing to plants is supposed to be good for them, and this is her mother’s favorite song.

_ I’m just a fool... _

Someone coughs from inside the enclosure, startling her. She drops the can and it spills all over her feet. She shuts her mouth, surprised—she didn’t think anyone was out here—and takes a few steps, clasping the canopy in one hand, shoes making spongy noises.

She sees the back of a man with light brown hair—only in boxers!—dashing away, and she runs back to the front of the house, pounding on the door. Watanuki answers, and she shouts, “There’s a man in the yard!”

Watanuki rolls his eyes. “Was he only wearing underwear?”

“ _ Yes!  _ I think you should call the police!”

“Nothing to worry about,” Watanuki mutters, smiling grimly. “I do think you should be on your way. Return tomorrow.”

Before she can retort, the door slams, locks. Sakura staggers backwards, but she knows well enough to run when something seems wrong, so she goes back to her car. She doesn’t start it, at first, but sits there, clutching her breast and feeling her heart pound inside it. Her phone shrieks out for attention, and she jumps. Syaoran’s name on the screen. She answers.

He says about five words before she takes off, tires screeching.

* * *

Kurogane disappears in a second. He comes back in one, too.

She gets a call from Mr. Li, and he’s frantic, yelling at her to go to the hospital. At first, Tomoyo does not understand. Is Sakura hurt? But Mr. Li says  _ Mr. Suwa is there  _ and she hangs up, runs out to the street, and hails a cab more frantically than she ever has in her life.

It takes twenty minutes, and feels like twenty hours. He’s in a hospital. He was shot in the chest. He has a punctured lung. But he’s alive. He’s alive. When the cab stops, Tomoyo jumps out of the car like the seat’s on fire, leaving the door opened behind her.

After shrieking at the staff for a while, she is, eventually, permitted to see him. She follows an all-too-patient nurse and she looks upon him—his hair is slightly longer, and he’s grey, and he isn’t awake, and there’s a tube coming out of his chest, but—he’s alive. Kurogane Suwa is back. She has not saved Kurogane. She has not brought him back. The person who shot him did that for her.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Li says, dry-eyed and perfectly sane. He guides her to a chair and convinces her to sit in it. She scoots it towards the agent’s bed and plants her head beside his unconscious hand, awed and small. Kurogane breathes calmly, distant, lost in a drugged sleep. Tomoyo stares at him, dazed.

Mr. Li clears his throat. “Mr. Suwa came back, after all.”

“Call Sakura,” she croaks. “Call Carla.”

“I have. They will be here, soon.”

“Okay—then get out.”

“Tomoyo—”

“Please,” she says, and her voice is brittle enough that he steps out of the room. Silently, Tomoyo gathers her breath, peering at her friend. She reaches up, touching his hand. She doesn’t know what to say to him. She wants to apologize. She didn’t save him. She didn’t stop him from getting shot. She didn’t extract him from Venezuela.

He breathes like a stone, hooked up to machines. A mask on his face. She never thought she would find him in a place like this. She did everything to keep him from this while they worked together. She stopped him from car accidents. She stopped him from killing himself. She hasn’t stopped this.

“Kurogane,” is all she manages to say before the breath catches in her throat, brutal and thick and painful. She squeezes his hand. The tears start, but she fights them. She is the strong one. She shuts her eyes, putting herself back together. “You’re an asshole.”

Good. She smiles, somehow. “Missed you,” she adds.

She keeps staring at him, studying his features, and suddenly, something occurs to her. He was shot in a precarious position. He was alone. But no ambulance brought him. Tomoyo shoots upright, straight out of her chair, and calls loudly for a nurse until a woman in humorously patterned scrubs approaches, looking justifiably hesitant before she asks what’s wrong.

“Someone brought him here,” Tomoyo says. She flashes her badge. “I need to know who.”

* * *

In the security cam room, the woman at the station gestures to multiple screens: different entries, hallways, lobbies, things of that nature. Tomoyo and the woman roll footage carefully back, watching the numbers shrink in black and white. People come and go in reverse. Patients retreat from the doors and stand out of their seats and move backwards through hallways as if being sucked away by something off screen.

Finally, the woman perks up and points to one screen in particular, pausing it. She asks, “Is this your guy?”

Tomoyo stares at the frozen image. A figure in a helmet appears to be struggling to bring Kurogane to the entryway, but they’re tall, lanky, with curly dark hair pouring out from beneath the helmet. Tomoyo swallows. The man is Kurogane. She knows that. But this person.

“I think it’s a lady,” says the woman. “Recognize her?”

Tomoyo swallows. “I don’t know.”

The woman rolls the footage forward slightly, playing it at a quarter speed. Tomoyo watches the figure prop Kurogane against the door and briefly hold his face between their hands, bending, as if telling him an urgent secret. They tuck something into Kurogane’s shirt pocket and his head lolls slightly to the side. The figure opens the glass doors, shouts something while waving their arms, and quickly darts back out down the sidewalk, moving out of sight. Tomoyo recognizes something in the video, of course. A few things. But one thing, in particular: the person’s combat boots.

The hair on the back of her neck stands on end. Her mouth tastes like pennies when she thinks about it—that evening, crouching under the car, holding her breath, expecting to be shot. A pair of black combat boots and a note. Tomoyo says, “Replay it. Keep replaying it.”

The woman does, moving it back to the first time the figure appears on screen, lugging Kurogane and visibly struggling to do so. Again, Tomoyo watches the figure grab his face, and put something in his pocket—

“Where are his clothes?” Tomoyo asks sharply. “There’s going to be a note.”

The woman calls someone over her walkie talkie and Tomoyo rewinds the footage, rewatching. Someone is dragging Kurogane, over and over, and abandoning him at the door, and running, someone tall, someone with combat boots, someone with unruly black hair.

A nurse comes in, bringing a bag of belongings, a bloody shirt with a hole in it, sliced down the center. Tomoyo puts on her gloves and gently pats the pockets, hearing a crinkle—paper. She removes a note and unfolds it. The corner is blotted dark brown from old blood, but the writing—

The writing is small, neat, careful, and she suspects the letters would have stayed within the lines had their writer not been rushed. But it’s what the note says that makes Tomoyo go very still and very silent.

_ I tried to keep him safe for you. I’m sorry I had to go. I’m in trouble. Please don’t look for me. _

Tomoyo’s chest tightens. Xing Huo had gone on vacation to visit family, but she didn’t do that, did she? Xing Huo was the one who stopped her. Xing Huo was the one with the tip about Kurogane’s lunch date. Tomoyo’s eyes start to sting. She likes Xing Huo. She always has. Xing Huo was the one she counted on to be level-headed and cool, plain-spoken, honest. When Tomoyo needed help, she always contacted Xing Huo. And the other night—

“No, no, no,” Tomoyo mutters.

Her gut talks, talks, talks, but it never talked about Xing Huo. She never suspected. She wouldn’t have. Xing Huo is the stoic, spooky woman behind a desk who never speaks unless spoken to, who always makes sure there’s coffee, who is always willing to make the extra effort, who—who—who is Xing Huo? What does this mean?

“Not you,” Tomoyo whispers.

* * *

He wakes somewhere else with a mask on his face, doped up and bleary-eyed. Sterile lights. White. No, this is not Heaven. No, death did take him, this time. Kurogane tries to speak and feels, suddenly, the tube in his throat. He tries to pry it out, and machines beep a frantic warning. People touch him. He’s doped up again. He’s heavy and angry and he needs to wake up.

A woman talks. A woman underwater. Is he? Kurogane pulls arms through, fighting to break back to the surface, but something shoves him back down, back into the depths. A woman’s voice, a woman’s hands, he’s sure of it, but who, but why?  _ Don’t die.  _ Kurogane wonders: is it really up to him?

He dreams.

His father with his hands up, begging, and a shot to the head. Kurogane in a cupboard, too ashamed and traumatized to ever be called ‘Youou’ again. His mother checking her temperature and his every morning, taking them both to doctors. Kurogane, fifteen, listening to her name a disease she can’t pronounce and doesn’t have.

Fai meets him in a café. They shouldn’t be here. Kurogane’s wire is off. Fai holds his hand on the table. Kurogane talks about Moko and what he wanted to be when he was a child. For a while, he wanted to be a fireman or a trash collector (he loved trucks, ultimately). Fai thinks this is hilarious and ‘adorable’, saying so, and Kurogane kicks him gently under the table. It is good, there. He should stay. He can’t. Something pulls him back out.

A woman underwater.  _ Don’t die, promise you won’t, promise me. _ He emerges, takes a breath, and machines beep to the tune of his heart. The water pours over his head, and he’s gone.

His therapist asks why he feels he’s damaged. The question insults him. He wonders if anyone listens to anything he says, if anyone could reasonably emerge from his life unscathed. He goes home and furiously organizes his DVD collection. His mother calls. She goes to voicemail. He slams his cupboards shut. The girl upstairs knocks on his door — _ are you alright _ —and he lies, because he should be, and he isn’t.

Happy with Fai. He was happy. A gun aimed at his head. This is not love. So what is it?

Kurogane is dying, and he feels it.

* * *

He is awake for a little less than ten minutes. A woman asks him questions, says to blink once for  _ yes  _ and twice for  _ no _ . Does he know his name? One blink. Does he know where he is? Two blinks. Hospital, she explains, because he was shot. He wants to ask where, but there’s something in his mouth and throat and he can’t talk. Does he remember what happened?

One blink.

Is he in pain? One blink.

But he doesn’t stay awake. He goes back. He stands in a room, watching himself as a child cry because his mother thinks she has breast cancer (she doesn’t) and she’s convinced him that they’re going to die, just like his father did, and he cries because he doesn’t want her gone, too. When he doesn’t have the tears left, he shoves over his box of toys and kicks them around the room, breaking them. He watches on. He wants to leave. The memory hurts.

He falls into another one: Fai telling stories while Kurogane falls asleep. That isn’t fair. He wants to shove that out, too, but he can’t break from it. Fai, speaking of thunderstorms and childhood dreams and the great crush of adulthood, and Kurogane understands it too well. Growing up, his father was immortal, and then he wasn’t.

Kurogane used to believe things happened for a reason. In his late teen years, he pushes those ideas away. There is no destiny, only coincidence. He wonders about destiny and coincidence, and does it matter if coincidence looks like destiny, really?

Another memory: Tomoyo shoves him onto the pavement, saving him from the bullet that would have brought him back to his father. She knows the future, sometimes, but she doesn’t know what else to do with it. He shoots the shooter because men like that kill fathers like his. Tomoyo pushes him into therapy, threatening that he won’t have a job if he doesn’t, and Kurogane can’t afford not to work.

He gets her flowers on her birthday, but it’s not a romantic gesture. They would die on her desk if Sakura didn’t water them. They do, though. They die. Flowers always do.

Fai gets too many roses. Kurogane is going to bring him lily-of-the-valley when he leaves Venezuela, but that is his idea  _ before  _ Fai points a gun at him and smiles. Fai, who looks like Chii, like he could be her brother.

Another: he kills the King, only to realize this hasn’t saved any of them. Fai, aiming at him. Fai, shooting. Kurogane does not know where, just that he stares at a bed of roses while the King lies dead, while he tries to breathe yet can’t get enough air. His breath sounds crackly, wet. Can’t move, can’t move, everything’s painful, and Fai is gone, and he thinks he will die there, like the fool he is, and Fai played him so well. Kurogane knows his last thoughts, before he leaves that place, somehow, are _this isn’t fair_.

Fai says love is selfish, that destroying a person doesn’t mean he doesn’t love that person. Kurogane wonders how many people Fai has loved and destroyed. He must be one in a long line of them. How many other lovers did Fai have? How disposable was Kurogane?

Love is selfless. No.

Love is cruel.

Kurogane wants no more of it.

Something in his chest hurts. A tube in his chest. He sees a tube, and he thinks he hasn’t been shot in the head after all, like the other bodyguard and this is good, because he won’t lose anything—brain intact, at least he has his brain. The hurt stops because someone comes in and injects something into one of the tubes in his arms.

_ Don’t die _ , someone’s telling him.  _ Don’t die, I promised her you’d be safe, promise me you’ll live, promise me. _

Another round of dreams, or of memories. He falls back asleep.

Finally, Kurogane wakes up.

* * *

Tomoyo calls him, texts him, emails him, and he never gets a thing. He has no idea how often this happens until he’s back, given a new phone in the hospital. Tomoyo and her smile lines have gained a soft crease near her brow from the sheer stress of the past weeks. Kurogane won’t mention it. He thinks it’s his fault. He’ll mention it, later, when they’re well enough to go to the bars, like they used to.

The King is dead. The vice president of Celes Oil takes over. Chii Ashura and Fai Flowright are gone. Kurogane tells Tomoyo as much as he can, but his chest hurts, badly, because there’s a hole in his lung that’s healing up. She visits him more than the others do, updates him, tells her what she thinks he can handle. He senses she is not telling him something important, but he knows he’s no better, as he only tells her the worst of what he’s done when he’s woozy and warm from his medications: he shot the King.

Tomoyo immediately says, “You didn’t do that. You’re delirious.”

When he insists, she gives him a stern look, and he realizes what she is doing. Protecting him. She looks off, near the door, and mutters, “The man who shot you also shot him, alright? That’s what you’re going to say.”

It’s a lie. Is he going to say it?

“What’s the plan?” Kurogane asks.

“Get your boyfriend,” Tomoyo replies flatly. Kurogane winces, so she slightly revises the plan. “He killed his brother, and he tried to kill you. We’ll work with police. We’ll find him. Get you some answers.”

He nods.

"What else do you remember?" she asks, but Kurogane cannot remember anything past being shot, although he knows this is not the answer Tomoyo wants, judging from her tense expression whenever she pries.

“I wish you hadn’t turned off your wire so many times, Kurogane,” she confesses, but it sounds more sorrowful than annoyed. She holds his hand, shaking her head. “We started to think you ran off on your own. I looked through your emails—yep, bad of me to do, but... I just wish I had known. That’s all.”

“Sorry.”

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

Kurogane doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. Tomoyo clears her throat, nodding softly.

“I can only imagine,” she remarks, “that Sakura’s baking you another cake as we speak.”

“Stop her before she starts,” he mutters, and she laughs.

* * *

He is released earlier than he thinks possible. He takes a taxi home, something thick and painful in his throat when he sees his apartment building—narrow and frugal and surrounded by college students, and his home. He gives money to the driver and comes out of the car, looking thoughtfully at the building. Red brick, slightly faded, three floors. His upstairs neighbor has her window open. She’s watering her plants. She waves at him, and he nods, and she rolls her window shut. The cab leaves him.

Kurogane grasps the railing, attempting to ascend the stoop. His breath is short; he's winded from  _ four steps _ . He is not old enough to feel old. He takes his key in one hand and opens the door, peering into the hallway. His apartment is on the first floor, at least, so he faces no additional stairs. He catches his breath before he approaches his own door. When was the last time he saw it? It could not have been memorable, then. He wouldn’t have known what was ahead.

He opens the door, and he smells something off. Weed? Is someone in there? He doesn’t step in, at first, throat dry because he sees a man at his dining room table in a chair, wearing nothing but pajama pants and socks, lean and pale with—mousy brown hair. Fai’s hair is that color. Kurogane  _ doesn’t have his gun _ . The man looks at him with a face Kurogane loves, setting down his bowl. Kurogane sees no gun, but he knows one might appear, soon.

He hesitantly shuts his door behind him.

“Fai,” Kurogane manages, cautious.

The man smiles.


	5. The Chemist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Fai o'clock!

A tall stranger comes to the bar and drops onto a stool. He is dressed well, but not well enough to be a regular customer. He has tan, warm skin and black hair and his face is tense. He tries not looking at Fai—or tries to be discreet—but Fai notices that, nevertheless, because Fai is observant. That’s all. He’s observant enough to realize the man doesn’t belong, here. He’s observant enough to realize the man has come for a specific purpose.

To meet him. He has seen the man sitting in a car, before, waiting around the places Fai goes. He has seen the man outside the tailor’s shop, outside the shoe boutique, outside the restaurants and bars—and now he has surfaced in the flesh, sitting in the very same bar, tall and broody. To meet him.

It was only a matter of time, Fai knows, because he has gotten comfortable with his new life. He has adjusted to the “rules”, the lovers, the money—the money was the easiest part—and he knows that paradise is a season, bound to change, and quickly.

He buys the man a drink.

He doesn’t realize what it will cost him.

* * *

It doesn’t go the way it should have gone.

Fai’s hand shakes, and he doesn’t shoot where he means to shoot: between the eyes. He has done that before with the last one and had no qualms about it. Fai does not attach himself to people, even those who attach themselves to him—not anymore, not since he left Finland. His last bodyguard, a handsome bouncer, lies buried in Nevada deserts, now, because he was not ultimately useful.

People have a use. That is why Fai keeps them. It is a symptom of how his life is, now, that people are tools instead of friends.

Mr. Ashura had a use. Mr. Ashura furnished Fai’s life. Mr. Ashura protected him, made him anonymous. At the same time, Mr. Ashura had him dismantled and imprisoned, locked into a contract he had not entirely expected. But Fai really did like the man, admired him. Mr. Ashura used him, too.

Fai thinks that is what love is—mutual theft, starving men eating each other. They were almost equal, but they weren’t. Fai was at a disadvantage. It made him seek out the people he did outside of Mr. Ashura, the ones who did not appear to catch onto him, the old bodyguards, the laser technicians, the art curators—all of the people who made for easy conversation, either eager to believe the facade, or unable to identify it for what it was.

But he never loved Mr. Ashura. He thought he did, for a bit, but it was admiration; it was a defense mechanism to make imprisonment tolerable; it was what he did to survive: pretend. And then, Kurogane.

Kurogane is a sore who nearly tricks Fai into thinking there  _ is  _ another way to love. Kurogane is a sore who makes Fai’s aim fail. It is not supposed to be like this. The agent should be dead, and he isn’t, and Fai panics. Kurogane, bleeding, and Fai, running. He realizes what he has done, and he realizes what it means.

Unwittingly, he has changed. He took Kurogane for a fool and nothing more than that. He knew what Kurogane wanted the minute he bought the man a drink—information, evidence, and not Fai himself—and when that ‘want’ became blurry, Fai took advantage of it. He rode the wave out. It was fun, pretending, and he used those feelings as leverage. Kurogane was always predictable, a bleeding heart—bleeding lung—and Fai knew exactly the words in Venezuela to make the agent lose all critical thinking skills.  _ Help me.  _ Kurogane’s history is marred with the dead, and Fai made that useful. And it worked.

But  _ this  _ should have worked. It didn’t.

Kurogane wheezes on the ground, bleeding beside the man  _ he  _ shot, and Fai’s hand shakes. A beautiful idiot on the stone, struggling to breathe. Fai misses. Fai does not miss. He doesn’t speak, but rolls Kurogane onto his back, taking the agent’s gun from his hands—a memento—and stands for a moment, looking at him. Kurogane is good-looking, like a handsome dog, and Fai’s hand shakes, and—this  _ should have worked. _

He kneels down and presses a hand to the wound while the call starts. The woman picks up before the second ring, and Fai speaks quickly, lest he get derailed: “I need you to come to the back. You need to take someone to the hospital.”

The door slides open again and they hang up at the same time. The woman’s gaze moves from a very dead Mr. Ashura to a still-living Kurogane and, finally, to Fai.

“I know I’m not the Ashuras,” Fai says, “so this isn’t my place, but I need you to do this. This is the last favor I ask of you.”

Both of them look at Kurogane, who keeps gasping for breath, pale in the face, otherwise unresponsive. Xing Huo steps forward and replaces Fai’s hand with hers, rolling Kurogane on his side. The man takes a slightly steadier breath and Fai holds out his bloody hand, as if surprised to see it. Xing Huo clears her throat.

“Help me move him.”

They hoist Kurogane up and he groans something, maybe Fai’s name, maybe someone else’s, but they make their way to the motorcycle by the garden. She gets on, first, and they fix Kurogane to her with Fai’s tie. Before she puts on her helmet, he grabs her arm, leaving blood on leather.

“You know him,” Fai murmurs. “Will he survive?”

“He may not,” Xing Huo says. “But today is lucky. We will see.”

She somehow tucks her hair into her helmet and takes off with Kurogane, out of sight, bike roaring. Fai turns away and starts off towards the front of the house, making his way to a parked car. Fai opens the door and takes a seat, buckling himself and feeling his traitorous hand still shaking, smeared in blood, not yet dry.

Behind the wheel, Chii sits sober and cold. The rearview mirror is completely missing, ripped out, and with it, the microphone. She cocks her head at him when he closes the door.

“Daddy dead?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“What about the bodyguard?”

It has gone wrong. Kurogane was never supposed to emerge from this alive; that was always the plan. Kurogane was going to be the patsy, the jealous lover who killed the King while Fai shot him in self-defense—and, conveniently, dead, so Kurogane could never explain his own side.

Something happened to Fai, and he doesn’t know where it happened, but he jerks the gun downward and shoots Kurogane in the chest, and he is so shocked by his own hands, what they have told him, that he fumbles out. He calls Xing Huo; his hands have told him that he can’t let the man die, and perhaps Kurogane will do exactly what Fai believes—following him, finding him, and—something happened, right? Something happened to Fai, and he saves this man’s life, and this man is not any different from the others, is he? He is no brighter than the other bodyguard was, the one that would not agree to his plan, but Fai has saved him. Something happened to Fai.

Kurogane did.

“I missed,” Fai says.

* * *

Mr. Ashura gives him an offer he can’t refuse.

In Finland, Fay faces a trial for his murdered brother—the prime suspect, in fact—and he knows how it ought to go. The facts, the evidence: all leads back to his hands. Piffle quietly fires him and Fay realizes, for the first time in his young life, that he has no out. He has structured himself to never need one, and he flounders. Before the trial even starts, he is forbidden to leave the country.

The body goes missing the same night it’s wheeled out of his home. Yes.  _ His  _ home. But the body goes missing, and Fay is troubled—only because, someday, it might be found. It does not matter, does it? If they find him guilty, Fay faces life imprisonment. In Finland, it rarely lasts so long, but it implies a twelve-year sentence at the very least. What took weeks to plan takes years to be absolved.

Fay kills his brother. It is not an accident. He knows it. The court will know it. And Mr. Ashura, like an angel, knocks at his door with an offer in his hands. It looks like heaven.

He accepts it, and Fay Fluorite dies. Fai Flowright is born.

He is being watched. He finds the camera in his bathroom, first, and most eyes would never see it. Fai is not ‘most eyes’. He finds it while he showers for the first time under his new name—a free man, acquitted, because Mr. Ashura paid off the Finnish judges (he suspects Mr. Ashura did even more than that)—and looks up at the ceiling, simply observing, and he sees it.

A tiny, tiny lens hidden on the black ceiling, pointing straight down at him.

He wants to reach up and touch it, but he chooses, instead, to finish his shower and retreat to his bedroom. He takes a mental note:  _ camera directly above shower _ . He realizes there will be more. If Mr. Ashura has them in such intimate locations, he will certainly find one in his bedroom. Watched. Hidden. He is not meant to realize they’re there.

This is not the freedom he was promised.

He tears apart his given room—Mr. Ashura gave him an entire suite of his California estate, the suite his estranged wife used and no longer will—and carefully dislodges books from the bookcases, checking behind them. He opens up every drawer, removing clothes—new clothes, gifted to him by Mr. Ashura himself—and he begins a systematic, worried search of the room. He finds nothing, and that is what concerns him. The bathroom camera would not have been noticed, had he simply not looked up.

There will be others.

There are.

On his first day, living in Mr. Ashura’s estate, he finds thirteen cameras: bathroom, living room (three, there), guest room, kitchen,  _ inside  _ the refrigerator, dining room (another three), and the hallway (another three, spaced out more discreetly than the others). He makes another note of where they are, but he does not sleep, that night, because Mr. Ashura has tricked him. He thought the man would pack him in and leave him be until the need for “chemistry” appeared, but he was wrong. Instead, he faces electronic supervision. He quickly forms a new plan. He pulls the covers over his head, entirely.

Nothing is safe.

What Mr. Ashura offered was not heaven at all.

* * *

He meets Chii Ashura, for the first time, outside the house. He smokes near the fountain, jittery and trying to hide that. He does not know how many cameras keep watch, here. For all he knows, nothing goes unseen so long as Mr. Ashura owns it. The man has left for Venezuela to check the land, and Fai is alone, here, though the King emails him to “see how he is adjusting”; Fai replies that he is “adjusting quite well”, suspecting ignorance could very well save his life.

Chii appears, and his gut reaction is that she’s a wreck. She has an opened bottle of vodka clutched in one hand—false, acrylic nails armored in clear rhinestones—and wears a graphic t- shirt, flannel shorts, and a yellow, fleece robe. She looks at him for a few moments, head tilted, and shrugs. She tosses back vodka and sits on the lip of the fountain, across from him.

“You’re a new one, huh?” she mutters. She thrusts the bottle in his direction, but he shakes his head. “Daddy told me about you.”

He smiles. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“I go by ‘Chii’, now. I tried out a few of them, but Daddy likes ‘Chii’ best because it’s cute.”

“Are you Mr. Ashura’s daughter?”

She briefly gives him a withering look, but nods.

“Pleased to meet you,” Fai tells her.

“Daddy says you’re a murderer,” Chii says. “How’d you do it?”

His smile wobbles. “I was tried, but found innocent. There is nothing to tell.”

“Boring.” Chii takes another gulp, polishing it off with a satisfied breath. “Boring! You can tell me, you know. The mic doesn’t pick up, here. Fountain makes a lot of noise.” She pauses. “Of course, the cameras see us, but you’d have figured that out, unless you’re an idiot.”

Fai immediately asks, “Why am I being watched?”

Chii laughs. “You’re not that special. Everybody is. It’s pretty fucked up, honestly. Daddy is always watching.”

“There is a camera,” Fai says, lowering his voice, “in my bathroom.”

“Gross, yeah,” she decides. “I covered mine with tape—the kind that’s sort of white, you know? So it looks foggy, but he still knows if I’m there. He keeps tabs on us. Even me.”

Fai’s stomach turns. Mr. Ashura watches his own daughter shower?

“Actually, I think I’m very thirsty.”

Chii gives him the bottle and watches him sip, wincing from the taste before he hands it back, nodding in gratitude.

“Your father is...”

“Yeah. I know.” She twirls her index finger beside her head. Pantomiming ‘crazy’ is not even enough of a start. “Why else am I drinking at 11 in the morning?”

Fai glances past the fountain statues, wondering where the cameras are, and how many are in the estate. If his own suite has so many, there will be at least over one hundred. He smiles, calmly, for them.

“Chii,” he murmurs, but she stands up.

“We’ve been talking too long,” she tells him. “Looks bad. Want a tip for now?”

He nods.

“You aren’t the first chemist he’s brought,” she says. “Rest of them didn’t make it. Wanna make it? Do everything Daddy says, and never let the cameras catch you crying.”

He is not the first, but of course he isn’t. Chii leaves without another word, walking off. Fai gets up and runs to nearby bushes, where he promptly pukes. He stays hiding for a moment, clutching his knees, catching his breath. He wipes spit off his cheek. The dread fades into numbness, acceptance. If this is his life, now, then it is what he must deserve.

He stands upright again and walks back inside.

* * *

The King brings him his assignment: his ‘job’.

It’s heroin. The same family of poison that destroyed Yuui, that sent him to a grave before Fai finished the job, topping it off with soil. Heroin. Pain-killing bliss. The packet he receives in a golden folder is thick and looks official, and though ‘heroin’ is never explicitly stated, Fai is not a fool. Opium from Afghanistan, to be broken down and battered into something else, just as Fai will be, though he doesn’t know that, yet.

The King returns from Venezuela, satisfied with the construction underway, and comes to Fai’s suite, dressed formally, and looks striking in the light of the hallway suite. And Fai has no choice. The King traps him with every safeguard imaginable. Cameras. Microphones. Evidence. Blackmail. Fai can never leave. He adapts by necessity.

“How was Venezuela, sir?” Fai asks.

“Warm,” the King replies, cataloguing Fai with the swift sweep of his eyes. “Shall we exchange pleasantries? I believe we are beyond that, now.”

“Do as you wish,” Fai says. The smile on his face creaks.

“You received your assignment.”

“Yes.” The papers in a golden folder, a list of chemicals, an imperative: heroin, but better. It is a cruel blow. Fai admittedly admires the King for his brazen callousness, perched underneath a civil front. Intriguing. A wound. He smiles, casually adding, “I was impressed.”

“Is it beyond your skill level?”

“No,” Fai replies automatically. Pride. Nothing is beyond him. “The only significant difference between heroin and pain pills is legality—or purity. I worked with pharmaceuticals, sir. I know what I’m doing. For the best effect, the concentration must be high: no fillers, as they might kill your users, and that does not make for a return customer.”

“Do you have...” Mr. Ashura cocks his head to the side, feigning concern. Fai knows that look; he gives it to others. “...any hesitations?”

Fai smiles easily. “Do you?”

“Your brother was an addict, Mr. Flowright. I wondered if you might struggle creating something so similar to his poison of choice.”

“It was one of many poisons, sir,” Fai returns.

“I see. I was curious.” Mr. Ashura takes a seat, at last, in a dining room chair. Fai follows suit, sitting across from him. The King looks wistfully at the room, drumming the table. “My wife lived here, once. I wonder if I should always think of love when I come here.”

Fai waits. It is impolite to ask why she is here no longer, despite his curiosity, so he says nothing.

“Do you regret your choice—accepting my offer?”

“No.”

The King smiles. “That is the correct answer, Mr. Flowright. You would be surprised by how many answer incorrectly. A pity.”

“I am one in a series, sir. I know my place with you.”

“Yes. Without me, you would have no place at all.” Mr. Ashura with his analyzing eyes, cold and collected, and Fai hates how they stare. “You know my condition: should you stop or object to this work, I will have you sent back, have your corrupt judges exposed, and send you back to trial.”

Fai is glad the man doesn’t look, because the smile is straining, weakening, and he says, “You do not leave me much room, sir.”

“When you have a life such as mine, such a thing is necessary. Envious eyes always watch, hoping to take my place. I do not give them any room,” the King says simply. “I do not give my own daughter that. Power is precarious, Mr. Flowright—being both predator and prey at once.”

“I understand.”

The King smiles. “You do not.”

* * *

Love is a calculated decision on Fai’s part. He sees the sort of freedom Chii has, how her father grants her anything and everything (such as breast implants and liposuction that Fai doubts the girl has ever needed), and decides that he will start pursuing the man. He observes enough about Mr. Ashura to recognize that the man is not entirely heterosexual, so he reasons that he will try to win a place of favor in the King’s heart. When Mr. Ashura returns from a conference in New York, Fai emails him, inviting him for dinner in the suite. Mr. Ashura obliges, but does not allow Fai to cook—he has his chefs do that much. Even so, he arrives immediately on time (6 PM) and Fai welcomes him in, beginning his plot.

“Blue is very flattering on you,” Fai tells him as the chefs bring salmon, couscous, and asparagus—it all smells wonderful, unbelievably so—to the table. Wine is poured for them both. It looks very much like a date to Fai, though he realizes this is probably how the King normally eats.

“You are adjusting well,” Mr. Ashura decides. He sips dark wine, a satin napkin in his lap, elegant hands folding around the bowl of the glass. “I like you, Mr. Flowright. Bright, pragmatic, and reasonable. You remind me of my wife.”

Fai decides this is a good thing. Whenever the King speaks of his wife, he sounds warm— if not forlorn. “You must be lonely, sometimes, sir.”

“By necessity, yes,” the King concedes. He places his glass on the table and sits back, studying his chemist. “I must beg your pardon. I confess that I have never had a male lover.”

Forward and civil—the same man who has cameras in all rooms but bedrooms. Fai smiles. “Would you like one?” he asks.

“You must be lonely, sometimes, as well,” the King replies idly. “I admire your boldness.”

“It is only dinner, sir.”

“Nothing is only dinner, Mr. Flowright.” The King smiles. “I am, admittedly, intrigued.”

“Am I intriguing?”

“Yes.”

“ _ You  _ are intriguing.”

Mr. Ashura stabs a chopped chunk of asparagus upon his fork and says, “I will send you instructions, if you should like to proceed in this. Do exactly as it asks, and I will return in three days at 10:30 PM. If you obey these orders, I will not leave you wanting for anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

They eat together, sharing a strange silence—Fai, a lover without needing to go through with the game of it, and the King, controlled and disciplined and never finishing his glass of wine. But Fai likes this. He likes that he doesn’t need to maneuver the mess of seduction, as it seems tedious (and he is not genuinely fond of Mr. Ashura); the King finds it the same way and skirts around the unspoken rules, which is refreshing.

He leaves Fai behind, and leaves bizarrely specific instructions and requirements of the man. The King goes to Afghanistan, and Fai goes to a salon, Chii in tow, having her rhinestone talons replaced with other ornamented talons. Fai has foils in his hair, and Chii watches his reflection just as he does.

“We’re gonna look related,” she says.

Fai smiles tightly. The fact is not missed by him. “Do you really think so, Chii? I never considered...”

She meets his eyes in the mirror with a cold expression. Neither of them elaborate further. Fai senses some subjects are too complicated to be covered in a salon session, and he decides against playing dumb—at least for her sake. He wants to apologize, but doesn’t know how. So, instead, he watches his own reflection, pretending to be somewhere else, watching his stylist part the foils to reveal straw-yellow hair.

He feels himself dying, piece by piece. A ghost. The waxing is worse, and he manages his way through it by listening to the waxer talk passionately about her little girl and how smart she is, and Fai emerges from it all, hairless and blond and strange to even himself. Stripped and bleached. But this is a suit of its own, a costume, and he is not found within it. He burns raw, but he smiles.

The price of this ‘love’ is pain. Its reward is privilege. So Fai accepts this.

He returns to his suite and drinks himself back into the illusion that this, too, is fine—that this is funny and not sad at all. Chii breaks into the suite to teach him the illusion, too, because she is more broken and has learned how to numb it better. He says she looks like her brother, a twin, and it stings because he was a real twin, once, but he laughs. She does not need to know. He comes to like this bratty girl-woman because she is a fool, but a lifeline—trapped like he is.

When the third night comes, and Mr. Ashura decides he is an appropriate lover because he is not himself, they make a starving, violent love together, and Fai clutches towards him, believable, even though he feels nothing. His heart died when Yuui did. He clutches towards the King, and the King takes his hand.

It is a lie, and a good one, because the King decides to proceed, decides to keep Fai as more than a chemist. A lie.

But only Fai knows it.

Fai lies in the former Queen’s bed, naked and gangly and too much of himself sprawling around. He is taller than Mr. Ashura, and in the bed, he feels underwhelmed, unsatisfied, bored. Mr. Ashura, sated yet watchful, as he always is. The King taps his fingers over raw, hairless skin, while Fai talks about the art pieces he would like to have (his mind is already away from sex, but it is never present when it happens, anyway, and never has been). An Odilon Redon, Édouard Vuillard, Paul Gauguin—artists who make something slightly untouchable, yet resonant all the same. He cannot have any genuine ones, but the King promises copies.

Fai wants the real thing. He closes his eyes, thinking about the Voynich Manuscript. The copy will arrive in a few weeks, and that should keep him busy for a while. He has completed the task—designed a new heroin—and mostly drinks, smokes, or entertains himself with Chii’s company. Still, he is lonely in this strange country. When Mr. Ashura visits, he is at least distracted from that loneliness.

When he learns of the other lovers, Fai successfully pretends to be jealous. He is not. He does not care, but he thinks jealousy is the right response. It is, because the King is very gentle in explaining the arrangement, careful to make sure that Fai does not feel slighted. He isn’t. Fai simply does not feel.

“There go the Frenchies,” Chii says one day, motioning to two young women—her age, if not younger, and blondes—who emerge from a car. Her own mother is a painful absence, replaced by girls and by Fai, too, but they never can. Fai watches them with interest. Mr. Ashura has a precise type: young, blond, and pretty. He wonders if these women are waxed bare, too, or if that is his particular punishment for being male.

Still, he pretends. He adopts some of Chii’s mannerisms, knowing how well they work, and finds that Mr. Ashura is particularly fond of him when he is demanding. So he is.

“I want the Dead Sea scrolls,” Fai announces, and Mr. Ashura chuckles. 

“Shall I give you the moon as well?” he wonders.

“Yes, darling. I would also like the moon.”

Mr. Ashura touches his blond hair, spreading locks apart to peer at the scalp. Roots. Some part of the illusion is ruined, and Mr. Ashura sits up, fixing his tie back on properly. “I cannot give you the moon.”

“The stars, then,” Fai insists.

“I will make an appointment with the salon.” Business in his words, and not care. Mr. Ashura will flee the room, soon. Fai will be replaced with a French woman named Gabrielle, or a young American model named Sophie, or a Canadian actress named Sarah, or or or. So many or’s.

“I would like to do it myself,” Fai says. He is tired of professional hands. If he should disappear, it should be by his own careful hands—not anyone else’s. “I am a chemist, after all. It will be an exercise of sorts. Please allow me.”

The King stands off the bed, stepping into his slacks. He fiddles with his belt and frowns. “You are not a hairdresser.”

“Please,” Fai says, and there is a plea, there, which he hates, but it rarely fails. The King loops his belt in and pats down his pants, frowning down at his feet. “I will do a good job. Please allow me.”

“Very well,” Mr. Ashura relents.

It is a small battle, but Fai has won it, and Fai eventually falls asleep, bruised and cold, and he wakes just the same—bruised and cold. He feels so numb that he touches his own chest, checking for a heartbeat.

Mr. Ashura said he would never want for anything. Fai wants, instead, for everything _ . _

* * *

His first bodyguard is given because Mr. Ashura eventually decides Fai is allowed some small freedoms. Before this, Mr. Ashura had the chauffeur take Fai about, but Fai was never happy with the arrangement; the chauffeur never let Fai go to a place for more than twenty minutes. He threw a tantrum as Chii would, and was granted a bodyguard in reward.

The first bodyguard is a very, remarkably handsome gentleman named Howard, and Fai is fond of him. Howard never talks beyond learning logistics for the first few weeks and stands by doors, looking surly and burly. When someone does attempt to steal from Fai (it was only a matter of time), Howard escorts the young man out of the shop and Fai watches, mesmerized, because all Howard does is give the would-be thief a stern talking-to. The poor boy cries. Howard pats him on the shoulder, sending him off. A good man. But Mr. Ashura is picky, choosy, and would only send a reliable man to guard his male lover.

Howard is the only bodyguard that Fai leaves alive and unharmed, in the end, because Fai sees pictures of the man’s twin boys and wife in his wallet. He decides that, in a practical sense, Howard is the wrong candidate. He has people that will look for him. So he never shares the plot with his first bodyguard.

He cooks up the plot with Chii, one evening. A simple solution to their complicated problem. Kill Mr. Ashura—but how? Chii is not allowed to have a gun. Fai is only allowed one with blanks in it. So they cannot kill Mr. Ashura. Someone else, however, can. Someone disposable. That is the major issue—finding someone disposable.

“We need somebody to dupe,” Chii says. “A big dummy.”

Obvious. They need someone foolish enough to go along with it, reliable enough to follow through with it, yet insignificant enough to die by the end. Fai has killed his own twin. He thinks the final part will be the easiest; he does not attach to anyone, not seriously, and has never attended a funeral where he cried. Yuui used to call him heartless. And Chii is no better. People are as valuable as dirty plates to her, for the most part.

It is the issue of finding the right candidate. The blonds plan in each other’s bedrooms, turning up the volume of the television to drown out the noise for the cameras in the hallways. Chii’s bodyguard is always assigned by Mr. Ashura (vetted, blackmailed, and cleared), but Fai... Fai might have some chance of choosing his own. He is a lover, and Mr. Ashura is generous with lovers. Thus it falls to Fai.

In any case, Fai lets Howard go, never telling him the plan—he tells Mr. Ashura that nothing is  _ wrong  _ with the bodyguard, but that he prefers a more sociable companion. He asks to choose the next, but Mr. Ashura does not allow it. The blonds are unhappy, but no one can tell.

Marcos is the next bodyguard, and he is absolutely perfect. Marcos, a former bouncer, is boisterous and loud and a bit of a vagabond, himself, but entertaining for that. He is also not very bright. It is not that Marcos is stupid, but Marcos is trusting, naïve, and enthusiastic. Useful. Inconsequential. Chii has one look at the man and smiles. The Princess approves. Fai moves forward.

He has to make a compelling case for killing Mr. Ashura: one that does not point to his own guilt as a murderer and the creator of Vallaria H. (a new heroin strain), but strictly points to Mr. Ashura as a bad man. It is easy enough to do. Marcos catches on to the “rules” of attire and takes issue with it. He realizes Fai is not allowed to leave the estate without an escort, which he also takes issue with (funny, too, as Marcos  _ is  _ his escort). He realizes that things that are genuinely happening are bad. That’s the trick of it. A good lie is full of truth.

Marcos fits the bill for the plot, but he’s carried away. He comes to the suite and tells Fai he will call the police. He takes everything from his pockets as a dramatic show—his money, his change, his gun, his knife—and tells his client, “This is what I got, man, but if it could cover you a month of rent somewhere else in the meantime...”

Fai thanks him. Marcos pulls out his phone, and Fai takes the gun from the table and shoots him. This man would call the police, and Fai does not need the eyes of the law. He picks up his cellphone and hears Mr. Ashura sigh.

“Fai,” he scolds, “you have killed a man in my  _ home _ .”

Fai studies the body and glances towards the camera in his kitchen. He shrugs. “Darling, that appears to be the case. What am I to do?”

“Why did you kill him?”

“He wanted to call the police. What should I have done?” Fai snaps, and the King is silent for a moment, knowing that Fai is correct. Police involvement will tarnish the image of the Ashuras. Fai’s presence as a live-in lover will do the same.

“I see,” Mr. Ashura mutters. “Wait quietly. I will have cleaners arrive, and they will see to it that your bodyguard stays buried.”

“You are letting me pick the next one,” Fai replies. “You have obviously failed me with Marcos.”

Silence, again. Fai is correct.

“Very well.”

All is very well. Fai learns how difficult hiding a body is. He knows he should be remorseful, but he isn’t. Marcos disobeyed the rules. Marcos had run out of his usefulness before he would have been the most useful. Marcos was going to die, anyway; he only sped up the process. He is not sorry that Marcos died; he is only sorry that Marcos was not useful, that Marcos could not free him. Some small, starving part of him knows that this feeling is, at best, unhealthy.

Chii comes into the suite and toes the man’s head, frowning at the fallen bodyguard. The ‘cleaners’ will arrive later, but for now, the blonds glare at a corpse.

“Dumbass,” she grunts, and Fai agrees.

* * *

Chii sits cross-legged on her bed, blaring the television—a reality TV show about rich folks who cannot dream of this heiress’s wealth—and eats banana chips like candy, watery-eyed. Fai joins her, there, and they’re both nearly high enough to forget why they’re even there. Of course, they aren’t really that high. One can never be that high.

“A bridge collapses. The car doors lock and he can’t get out, so he drowns in a big river.”

“I think your father deserves something with a bit more pizzazz,” Fai chuckles.

They are playing an odd, morbid game: dream up ways for Mr. Ashura to die. Chii loves this game, even if she loves her father. Fai loves it, too.

“Fireworks go off in the car,” Chii adds.

“Be reasonable, dear.”

She turns down the volume, laughing. “I want more wine.”

“We just finished a bottle,” he reminds her. “I think that’s enough for tonight, don’t you?”

“Of course not.”

“Why don’t we just enjoy ourselves?”

She turns her head, looking him over as if seeing a stranger.

“Enjoy ourselves?” she repeats. “Go fuck yourself.”

She turns the volume back up and glares at the television. He considers patting her on the head, but hesitates, keeping his hands to himself. Chii hugs her knees to her chest. It takes Fai a moment to register the feeling in his chest. Pity.

“Look at my life,” she says. “I mean,  _ really  _ look at it. You can barely stand it, and you haven’t even been here long. Now imagine this has been your life  _ the whole time.  _ What would  _ you  _ do?”

Fai speaks without thinking: “Die.”

Chii turns her head, glaring up at him with wet eyes. The television keeps going in front of them, full of other people’s stories, commercials for car dealerships, images of a world Fai realizes neither of them can live inside while a certain man keeps them in this house, awaiting orders. Fai knew what life could be like, though. He was there. He knew love, and kindness, and houses without cameras. Chii has only dreamed of it. She looks away from him.

“I can’t,” she says. “He won’t let me.”

* * *

He is allowed to choose a bodyguard, this time. He chooses a tall stranger he meets in a bar, an agent, and researches. Mr. Suwa has the distinct misfortune of witnessing his father’s death as a child, a history of erupting violently in his school years, and—well, he is attractive, which makes it all too easy to buy him a drink and take a seat beside him. Kurogane Suwa. It is a name that tastes like treasure in Fai’s mouth, and it belongs to a man who already wants to see the King fall.

Kurogane, too, is soft-hearted. Fai does not need to be heavy-handed to show Kurogane that something is wrong within the kingdom. Kurogane draws those conclusions, himself, and— even better—Kurogane  _ attaches.  _ He attaches in a way Fai has never seen before, and he does all the correct things. He doesn’t call police, and even Fai knows the man is disobeying his own orders. Buying Fai a  _ gun  _ is certainly not something the Agency does, but it is something Kurogane does.

A sap. An idiot. But good. Fai and Chii agree: yes, he is perfect. Yes, he is the one they need. Fai does everything he can, using Kurogane’s attachment to his advantage, and plants the seeds. Mr. Ashura is bad. Mr. Ashura does bad things. Mr. Ashura does bad things to  _ him _ , and Fai needs help. Kurogane sees a person struggling to hold up his own weight—someone like himself—and rushes straight into the line of fire to stop it, a storm of fear and instinct.

And he is perfect.

Fai asks Kurogane to take him on drives. At first, it is to make Kurogane suspicious that something is wrong, and because he needs to make a visit to Miss Yuuko. When Mr. Ashura said he could have anything he wanted, Fai asked to have his brother’s dog, Nana. Mr. Ashura, allergic, could not allow it, but arranged for Nana to be taken in by one of his own ‘business partners’—Miss Yuuko, a grower and distributor. In California, she is unlicensed to do so, but the King is careful to protect her. So Fai goes to her, leaving Kurogane in the car and stepping inside. The woman is all legs, dressed in a robe, and she smiles when she lets him inside.

“Mr. Flowright,” she says. He kisses her hand, and she chuckles. “I believe I have something for you.”

“I believe you do.”

Nana rounds a corner and bounds to him, excited, but his skin hurts and he only manages to pat the dog on the head. Her tail wiggles. Miss Yuuko smiles at them both and steps away, disappearing through a room with a beaded-curtain covering its door. Her plants are there. Fai has seen them. Chii asks him to buy from her, often, but he does not like doing it. He does not like Miss Yuuko.

She returns with painkillers, and he gives her money.

“Miss Yuuko, is Nana well?”

“Very. She is a naughty girl,” the woman muses. Nana watches them with magic in her brown eyes. “I rather think she resembles your driver. Is he new?”

“Yes, but he is well-behaved,” Fai replies, smiling.

“What is his name?”

“Kurogane.”

“Ah,” Miss Yuuko hums. “He is ‘black steel’, then.”

“Pardon?”

“That is what his name means.” She tilts her head. “Black gold, black steel—you have a wonderful marriage of vices.”

“How poetic, Miss Yuuko.”

They share a tense smile between them, and Fai leaves, giving Nana one last pat on the head. The dog looks healthy, he thinks, as he returns to the car and amps up his dramatics, sitting awkwardly simply so Kurogane will suspect the worst. Kurogane, instead, asks about Miss Yuuko, and Fai thinks the man is getting too smart.

“Drive me home,” Fai commands.

Kurogane does.

And the sixth time Fai asks for this, it is not to plant ideas in the agent’s head. It is for nothing at all. It is so he can sit beside a man with good intentions and relax in a quiet place, reveling in the brief escape from a beautiful estate that holds him hostage. He falls asleep to Kurogane tapping on the wheel with anxious hands, and he falls asleep, again, while Kurogane whispers curses at traffic. When he opens his eyes, perched outside his suite, he thinks Kurogane is a good man, and his throat hurts. Cat hair. His mother’s cat. This man with dead parents and grief lodged in his eyes, but trying, somehow, to overcome it. If Kurogane can save Fai, he can save himself, right?

“Want me to walk you in?” Kurogane asks.

Fai kisses his cheek.

* * *

Outside, Fai has a heavily sweetened iced coffee while Kurogane takes his black and hot. They wait for sandwiches to be delivered to their table, chatting together to fill that space. Fai knows the wire is off—Kurogane acts differently when it is, more forthright and kind in his strange way. To an onlooker, it looks like a typical date between two men who like one another. Fai does like Kurogane, despite himself; the man is predictable and solid. And Kurogane likes him, pupils dilated, leaning on the table with one elbow because Fai does the same. Mirroring. Fai read lots of books about attraction and body language as a child, realizing he could not pick up these cues naturally, so he knows what it means. To test him, Fai leans with his other elbow. In a few seconds, Kurogane does the same, seemingly without realizing it.

“A garbage collector?” Fai asks.

“Really, it was just trucks,” Kurogane admits. “Loved trucks. Anything to do with them.”

“That’s adorable,” Fai decides. Kurogane concedes a small smile and kicks Fai under the table, but not hard enough to hurt—just to be playful. Fai smiles in return. “I was never interested in cars. I never liked driving, either.”

“Convenient that you have a chauffer.”

“Yes, but I like it better when you drive,” Fai replies. “Mr. Ashura’s men drive quickly and brake without warning. You are careful. It is calming.”

“Hard to imagine you distressed.”

“Perhaps,” Fai remarks, “but it does happen. Ah! Lunch. Thank you.”

Their waiter emerges with two plates, setting them before the men and asking if there is anything else they need. There isn’t. He wanders off, again, and Kurogane immediately stuffs fries into his mouth. The man knows what he wants. There is no pretense.

“Where else do you work, Mr. Bodyguard?” Fai asks, cutting his sandwich into little squares. He suspects this is a restaurant Kurogane took girlfriends—and/or boyfriends—to, as the man had attempted to order for them both. Fai does not need to be spoken for. In any case, he knows the answer Kurogane gives will not be true.

“Office.”

Not entirely a lie. Fai raises an eyebrow.

“I find it difficult to imagine you in an office, darling.”

“That’s where I work.” Kurogane shrugs, swallowing. “And with you. Wherever you decide to be guarded. Don’t know why you need me in the house, though.”

“I don’t.”

Kurogane puts down his sandwich.

“I simply like having you there,” Fai says. That is not entirely a lie, either, though it is, partially. He needs Kurogane there to build up evidence, to make Kurogane look like a lover. He did not anticipate really considering the man as one, but, then again, he did not anticipate Kurogane emailing him (the personal email, not checked by the Agency) for a surprise lunch date.

“That’s fine. I like it, too.”

“You’re sweet to me.”

“Hmmph.”

“Do you ever think that you were made incorrectly?” Fai asks, and Kurogane takes pause at that, staring at his own sandwich. He blinks.

“Hell did that come from?”

“I was having a thought.”

“About yourself?”

“Yes and no.”

“You’re fine, Fai,” Kurogane says, firm. He meets the blond’s eyes. “Nothing wrong with you.”

He’s wrong, but it’s nice to pretend, for just a bit, that he’s right. Fai places his hand on the table between them, palm upturned, and Kurogane sets his upon it, warm and rough, knitting their fingers together. Normal. Natural. It feels like both. Fai looks at the man with a timer over his head, the seconds flying off. Kurogane is a dead man.

He squeezes Kurogane’s hand, smiling calmly.

“I was right,” he decides. “You are a good date, after all.”

* * *

Kurogane gives him a gun. Kurogane wants Fai to protect himself, but he cannot see that Fai is already doing that. Fai does not accept the gift. In fact, he pulls apart his own deliberate lie, confessing that no one is hurting him, that waxing makes him uncomfortable, and he does that because—he knows why, but this is the wrong time.

Kurogane lets Fai kiss him after Chii sells him out—no, he is no ‘PR consultant’, and he never was—and in the bedroom, Kurogane looks starved, like he wants more, and Fai will not feed him. He watches the man’s face fall, notices how Kurogane flips his wire back on, and gives him a false story. Not entirely false. Opium  _ is  _ involved, but Fai knows exactly how, because that is his own part in the business.

Kurogane goes to Venezuela with his supervisor to see if they can find evidence of ‘dirty business’, and they don’t. Fai uses the man. He bruises his own eye in the bathroom and cries to Mr. Ashura, claiming he does need his bodyguard, here, after all, because someone attacked him. Mr. Ashura is frantic and angry and Fai shouts as if there will be trouble if Mr. Ashura does not grant him Kurogane’s presence. To Kurogane, it looks as if Fai has been beaten, and Fai knows that. He knows Kurogane’s bleeding heart, and he stomps on it, pointing a gun at him and smiling.

Kurogane agrees to a plot without knowing what it is. He knows the essence—freedom— but does not know what he will do, what will become of him, but he is not the only man who cannot predict the future.

Kurogane reveals just how broken he is in Pennsylvania. Fai is kept awake by Kurogane shouting in his sleep, stomping in his sleep. Fai sprinkles Klonopin into the man’s soda and watches Kurogane deteriorate. The sleepwalking doesn’t entirely stop, but he stops making awful sounds in his sleep. But Kurogane catches on. Kurogane stops drinking the soda. Kurogane lunges at him with a knife. Fai shoots a blank into his arm. Practice, he knows, and Kurogane screams that nothing is wrong with him, and Fai begs, begs, begs— _ get better, please, get better, please _ —while knowing he is the one doing this; he is the one prying Kurogane apart, damaging and cruel. In another life, they could be something good. In this one, they are doomed to hurt.

Kurogane attempts to jump from his own window, still asleep, and Fai pulls him back in by the ankles, realizing that his heart is pounding with pain he hasn’t felt since he decided Yuui was a lost cause. Kurogane asks for his gun, and Fai has the man’s cat stolen. A gun is bad. A cat is fine. But Kurogane is not satisfied.

Kurogane loses his mind because Fai says so, but it hurts. It hurts terribly. Kurogane, blaring terrified truths while Fai shields them with gentle lies. Dead doctors. Kurogane breaking down, hiding in a closet for hours, completely paralyzed. Fai drags him out, his resurrected heart hurting, and he tries to smile for the cameras, but he can’t.

This is suddenly not an act, anymore, and Fai knows it.

Fai realizes just how hard Kurogane was trying to hold himself together, and Kurogane’s efforts were so convincing, before Venezuela, that Fai believed it. Fai tells stories to make the man fall back asleep, the night of the window, and when he leaves the room, he buries himself under his own covers and clutches his chest. Beating. A heartbeat. He is alive, and his heart is being improper, hurting, because Kurogane is a mess and Fai wants him to be better.

The fact that Fai wants this for Kurogane’s sake, he thinks, is why it hurts so badly.

Kurogane agrees to kill the King, not knowing that the final step is his own death. Chii is happy, exuberant, and Fai smiles along with her. She does not realize what he feels. She only sees, correctly, that Kurogane is a sap, and that he holds the key to their freedom. Whether he lives or dies does not matter to her, as she can’t be bothered to even remember his name. Fai, on the other hand, cannot forget it.

He cushions himself, protects himself, and watches Spanish soap operas with the agent, toying with their hands and translating the action. Kurogane thinks love is selfless. He finds it selfish. He finds himself selfish, and sees Kurogane, despite everything, selfless. It is love, but his love is bad, and his love will devour Kurogane alive. So he tries for distance, but can’t do it. He has not had a friend since Finland, and he has not expected one. He has not expected Kurogane. And it feels good, sometimes, but it hurts, because Kurogane will die and Fai will be free.

But something goes wrong. Something happened to Fai. The gun doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do—no, it does—Fai’s  _ hands  _ don’t do what they should, and he knows why, he does, but it’s the wrong time. In another life, they could be good together. In another life, but not this one, and—

In California, Fai  _ misses. _

* * *

Miss Yuuko sits with him in Madrid, luxurious and lusty, as she always is. Fai is all angles and bone, and Miss Yuuko is flesh and poise. She uses people, too—a predator with a pretty face. The same as Fai. He does not care for anyone who might outwit him, but she cannot outwit him. Inside, Chii has adopted the bar of Cougar Madrid, but Fai waits outside at a white table, smoking, and Miss Yuuko appears like a dark cloud. She joins him, taking a seat across from him, dressed smartly. It is odd to see her in anything but a robe, he realizes, as it takes him a moment to place her.

“I thought,” Miss Yuuko muses, “that I might find you, here, Mr. Flowright.”

“Are you enjoying Spain?” Fai asks pleasantly.

Her mouth quirks, stained deep red. “Are you enjoying your inheritance?”

“I am enjoying as much as I can, what with him gone,” Fai returns. She hums in agreement. She turns her head, looking past the row of parallel-parked cars, into Paseo de San Francisco de Sales; the public block separating the street is ruddy, tiled, and full of natives and tourists alike. The day is young and pleasant, warm, and these particular tourists go unnoticed. He adds a lie: “It is difficult.”

“He was mine, too,” she reminds him. “I have had him much longer than you, Mr. Flowright.”

He knows her meaning. Both of them came into the kingdom the same route—criminals saved from punishment. Miss Yuuko was rescued from Japanese prison because Mr. Ashura knew she had what his daughter wanted, and he could structure it so that the woman could never leave. Just as he did with Fai. But she is right; he saved her long before he saved Fai. But she was never a lover, being too old and black-haired. “What are the others doing?”

“Crocodile tears,” Miss Yuuko murmurs, smirking. She taps imaginary tears down one cheek with her finger. “Amélie returned to Toulouse after the ceremony, as did Gabrielle. Crocodile tears—amusing, but expected. His wife did the same. You and I both saw Chii’s performance, with the tear stick. Pity. A king dies, and his kingdom rejoices. Does a soul mourn him?”

“You do not.” Fai smiles at her.

“You are correct,” she says mildly. “California was entertaining, but it is not my home. It was never yours, either.”

“Where will you go, Miss Yuuko?”

“Marseilles, London, Oslo, Berlin—the question is more of where I will not go, Mr. Flowright,” she chuckles. “I wonder what your plan is, now. Will you take the Princess around the world?”

“She needs a guardian, and I will be hers for the time being.” Fai flicks his cigarette, and they watch the grey flecks flutter towards the pavement. “You and I both know what her mother would do.”

“Rehabilitation is not the hell you imagine.” She smiles. “She cannot self-medicate forever.”

“She is too broken to do much else. I will keep her safe.”

“Just as you kept your brother safe?”

A low blow. Fai smiles nastily. “Mind your manners, Miss Yuuko. The King is not protecting you, anymore.”

“Nor you.”

“Care for a cigarette?”

“Yes.”

Fai puts his out, dropping it to the sidewalk and toeing it into a dull simmer. He retrieves his metal case and fishes two out, handing the woman one. He lights hers as a courtesy and lights his own, wishing the woman would take a plane back to Japan and have it crash. She looks at him, calm.

“That night,” Miss Yuuko muses, eyebrow raised, “he died, and a second shooter shot your bodyguard in the chest. I cannot help but find it suspicious.”

“I didn’t witness it. I do not know more of it. Kurogane shot him, and someone shot Kurogane.”

“You left him alive,” she says, and Fai chokes on the smoke in the throat. She only smiles at that.

“I don’t understand your meaning,” he coughs.

“Mr. Flowright, do not take me for a fool,” she chides him. “He  _ will  _ recover, and he  _ will  _ tell the world what you did.”

He does not smile. She should not know this.

“You would have had an easier time, had you simply killed him. You could claim self-defense. Instead, you shot too low, and the police have opened an official investigation. Why would you do that to yourself?”

“I missed,” Fai says.

“You do not miss,” she replies, and though she is smiling, her teeth are jagged, yellow. She takes a drawl, and she touches his chest with her palm. “Ah—what is this? A heartbeat? You might have one after all, Mr. Flowright.”

“An accident,” he quips. “There is nothing more to it.”

She withdraws her hand, bemused.

“I think,” she murmurs, “you are in love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a strange time to be updating this story. I hope you are all safe, and that at the very least, this gives you relief or comfort.
> 
> This pic will be broken up into multiple arcs. The first ends here!


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